Non-Profit Organization Limbitless Solutions Promoting Innovative Solutions for People with Limited Mobility

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Limbitless Solutions, a non-profit organization developed with the intention of “building a generation of innovators who use their skills and passion to improve the world around them”, is doing just that through their work with bionic arms and development of other assistive technologies. The organization is a direct support organization of University of Central Florida that was started in 2014. Within just four years, their solutions have already reached 179 countries.  

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High User 'Star Ratings' Doesn't Mean Mobile Medical App Works

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By screening nearly 300 user reviews and comments for a once popular App claiming to effectively monitor blood pressure, Johns Hopkins researchers found that a high "star rating" doesn't necessarily reflect medical accuracy or value.

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How the Xbox Adaptive Controller will change the lives of millions of players with disabilities on PC

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Microsoft has done a great service to disabled gamers in creating the Xbox Adaptive Controller (XAC). It's a new gamepad that features 19 3.5mm input jacks which you can plug all sorts of add-ons into. They're industry standard, so players will be able to purchase a variety of switches to fit their needs.

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Brigham and Women’s Hospital leverages digital pills to track opioid use

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Tracking the use of opioids has never been more important than during the ongoing drug epidemic. That’s why Brigham and Women’s Hospital has turned to digital pills—gelatin capsules containing ingestible sensors and medication—to help track patterns of opioid usage among patients.

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Health, wellness apps pose risks to consumer privacy

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While there are federal regulations governing how personal health data is shared, only a fraction of the increasingly popular consumer apps on the market are actually regulated, leaving enormous amounts of information largely unprotected.

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mHealth Data Adds Detail, Meaning to Population Health Programs

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Smartphones have long been considered an ideal mHealth tool for personalized medicine, capable of collecting individual data and pushing out targeted reminders and information. Now that data is being used to power population health programs, with strong success.

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LiveWell RERC Releases Amazon Echo Skill That Reads TechWatch and LiveWell News Blogs

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LiveWell RERC development staff recently released an Amazon Echo Skill that will read aloud the latest posts from our two blogs, TechWatch and LiveWell News.  The new skill can be installed on the Amazon Alexa app and then utilized on any Amazon Echo product.  The skill taps into the RSS feeds from our blogs and is called the LiveWell News Skill.    Once enabled, saying the command “Alexa, what’s the news”, or “Alexa, what’s my flash briefing,” will allow your Echo to read aloud the latest LiveWell RERC news feeds.  A user will only get information if it has been updated within the past week.  The LiveWell RERC developer of the new skill from Duke University, Leighanne Davis, says “The new skill will make the news feeds more accessible and convenient to a variety of users by providing speech output.”

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Alibaba challenges Google, Amazon with new Echo-like device

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The competition in digital speaker-assistants is getting more intense, as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. unfurled an Amazon Echo-like device and fellow Chinese internet giants Tencent and Baidu prepare to develop their own.

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App economy to grow to $6.3 trillion in 2021, user base to nearly double to 6.3 billion

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The global app economy will be worth $6.3 trillion by 2021, up from $1.3 trillion last year, according to a new report this morning from app analytics firm App Annie. During that same time frame, the user base will almost double from 3.4 billion people using apps to 6.3 billion, while the time spent in apps will grow to 3.5 trillion hours in 2021, up from 1.6 trillion in 2016.

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Google I/O 2017 Updates on Disability, Accessibility, Assistive Technology (AT), and Emerging Technologies

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An experience to be remembered and referred to throughout the year, Google I/O 2017 lived up to its hype. Sessions, sandbox demonstrations, Code Labs, and Google expert office hours boasted topics on Android, machine learning, Internet of Things, the Google Assistant, Accessibility, and others. By giving accessibility the center stage for a variety of sessions, sandbox demonstrations, and expert office hours, Google has again shown the AT community its dedication to closing the gap in accessibility and usefulness of technology for people with disabilities. Google’s many technologies and products also show big implications for the disabled community to leverage throughout life.

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Multiuse data dominates 'Future of IoT' implementation

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The internet of things wave is here, and its promise of flashy new gadgets is quickly being overshadowed by its promising effects on both the enterprise and industry verticals. However, at the end of the day, Don DeLoach, former president and CEO of Infobright (it was acquired by Ignite Technologies in March 2017), knows IoT implementation is all about the data and how that data is being used.

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21st Century Medicine: Where Big Tech Is Placing Bets In Healthcare

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Tech has already had a major impact on the healthcare industry in areas such as medical record systems, connected medical devices, telemedicine software, and a growing number of digital therapeutics startups that help patients manage chronic conditions at home. And over the last few years, the largest tech companies in the world have begun to bolster both internal development of healthcare products as well as their private market activity in the health sector.

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Devising new metrics for senior health with the smart home

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The U.S. healthcare industry is undergoing seismic changes brought on in large part by a growing greying population. Home­based care and connected aging with smart environments for seniors are gaining traction as pivotal solutions, with the number of skilled nursing homes in the country stagnating for more than a decade. Fortunately many seniors — 90% — prefer to age in place in their own homes.

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