Vital signs collected and transmitted by your cellphone!

Researchers in Edmonton, Alberta are teaming up with cellphone maker LG Electronics to test a new device that can detect a patients temperature, pulse, and blood pressure and transmit the data via cellphone. Plans are to build the device into a cellphone and include further vital signs such as glucose levels and other blood chemistry readings. According to the CBC, "the device could help people with conditions, such as heart disease and diabetes, that require frequent home-care monitoring, as well as seniors or patients who live in rural areas." The Province of Alberta is committing $1.5 million to the joint project by LG, Capital Health and the University of Alberta. It just makes good sense to collect this data at home using a single device and the infrastructure that is now in place to support it. The only negative that I see in the remote monitoring of patients is the inability to see physical changes in those being monitored, in particular the elderly. I'm sure regular visits to or by a health professional are also part of the program, it would be a mistake to rely completely on the technology... in my mind.

Arthur C. Clarke - on turning 90

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and countless others, has turned 90. Born December 16, 1917 Clarke is the last surviving member of the "Big Three" of science fiction which also included Robert A. Heinlein and Isaac Asimov. In a birthday message to all of his fans, Clarke has recorded a short video to reflect on his time on Earth and what he'd like to see while he's still around.

Plenty of buzz about Ribbit

The RSS feeds are full of stories touting the release of details of Ribbit this morning. The start-up has developed a telephony switch that can connect Web-based phone calls to a variety of phone networks, including VoIP services like Skype. According to CNet's News.com "developers can access those voice services through Flex-based application programming interfaces (APIs) and with Adobe Systems' Flash browser plug-in." The company has recently scored a round B venture capital financing deal worth a reported $10 million, this on top of a $3 million injection in 2006. The Flash based interface is very interesting as many mobile devices support Flash.

Have you ever Googled yourself?

A report released on Sunday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, says 47% of American adult Internet users have used Google or another search engine to looked for information about themselves. The number is over double what it was when a similar study was conducted in 2002. According to Wired, "Americans under 50 and those with more education and income were more likely to self-Google - in some cases because their jobs demand a certain online persona" and "53 percent of adult Internet users admit to looking up information about someone else, celebrities excluded." Well, if you haven't already done so... perhaps you should just go Google yourself!

Asimo demo video shows robots working together

Here's an interesting look at the new Asimo working together to complete tasks and avoiding collisions with humans, they still look a little awkward and deliberate but impressive none the less.

Business being told to resist social networkings temptation without careful thought

Gartner analysts are warning companies to think carefully about employing social networking systems regardless of the temptations to do so. With FaceBook and LinkedIn both making moves to make their systems available, a Gartner report says "the hype around social networking doesn't necessarily mean it's a mature enough technology to make it a critical business requirement" according to CNet's News.com. It is suggested that the value from these systems is actually in the content and not the delivery mechanism which is fairly obvious, in my mind...

Canada Post, Police seek "rogue elf"!

As long as I can remember Canada post has been accepting letters to Santa at the special postal code - H0H 0H0. Youngsters from all over can write to Santa and receive a response courtesy of one of thousands of volunteers. This year however, the program has had to be shut down in Ottawa as at least 10 nasty letters had been delivered to unsuspecting children. "We firmly believe there is just one rogue elf out there," a Canada Post spokeswoman told the Ottawa Citizen!

Google testing Adsense Review Center

In a move aimed at giving publishers more control over the ads that they display on their sites, Google is testing a new system called "Adsense Review Center". On the Inside AdSense blog Google says this of the service, "... will allow you to review ads placement-targeted to your site and ensure those ads are relevant to your site's users... If you think an ad is not relevant for your users, you can prevent it from appearing again by blocking it in the Ad Review Center." As an AdSense user I think this is great, I'm not always thrilled with the ads that are placed on the site and until now had no choice but to allow them to filter through or stop participating in the program. I'm certainly not ready to quit the day job by any means, but may AdSense allow me to feed my geek habits a bit and I don't think it detracts from the blog?

RIM opens BlackBerry Store

Research In Motion has opened it's first BlackBerry branded store in Farmington Hills, Michigan. The Waterloo Ontario based cellphone producers plans to sell BlackBerry handsets, accessories and software, as well as service plans from all the major U.S. providers. The move is not unique to the industry but it's a growing trend that has the providers taking notice. "If you're Verizon and you're carrying the BlackBerry today, when you see one of these exclusive stores, obviously you're not going to be too thrilled about that," said retail consultant David Ian Gray in a National Post interview. According to the CBC "RIM is said to be earning around $10 per BlackBerry customer from Canadian cellphone providers" perhaps this is why the move was made in the US and not home in Canada?

Google's knol project - "a way to help people share their knowledge"

The official Google blog has an interesting post about a new project that Google is calling "knol" which according to them "stands for a unit of knowledge". The idea is to identify the author of content much like a book has the author's name on it's cover. My impression is that it is a lot like Mahalo in some ways. "We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word "knol" as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we'll do the rest."

The trouble with the web has always been that you have to be careful of what/who you choose to trust as a reliable source of information, these types of projects may help us to determine "the wheat from the chaff"! I for one will be interested to see how reliable the sources turn out to be. The project is currently by invitation only so you can't give it a try just yet, unless of course you were invited.