Google Glass in Sports

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Steve Mays

A two-minute clip from Noble Ackerson, just shooting around by himself in a mostly empty gym, but the perspective Glass gives while still letting Ackerson move around freely is pretty cool. And for you hockey fans, this six-minute upload from Joseph Lallouz playing some pick-up hockey. The clip gives us views both from the bench and as he’s skating around in the thick of the action.

Watching these, I have to believe it won’t be long before we see what an NFL QB or wide receiver sees.

Thanks to Mashable for pointing to these.

Scott Adams: Knowledge is Health

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Steve Mays

Scott Adams tells us 50% of second opinions from doctors contradict first opinions? And that 80% of the findings in medical literature are wrong.

“A new company called Metamed offers to be your personal medical researcher. For a fee of $200 per researcher per hour, with a $5K minimum, you can make sure the full force of science is on your side. Metamed analyzes the medical literature and tells you which study results about your condition are reliable and which are not. They assess the value of various diagnostic tests, and create a map of all possible medical correlations. It’s the sort of thing your doctor would love to do for you if he had the resources.”

And those Google glasses everyone’s making fun of?

“I can also imagine a time in which Google Glasses will observe all of your food choices during the day and keep a running record of your nutrition. When you stray from a healthy diet, your glasses might start suggesting a salad. When you don’t exercise all day, the glasses might suggest using the stairs instead of the elevator. For all practical purposes, a human with Google Glasses and a smartphone is already a cyborg. And your future cyborg half will do a better job of keeping your organic parts functioning than you are doing on your own.”

UPDATE: Metamed went out of business in 2015

Medical scenarios for Google Glass

Posted on March 12, 2013 by Steve Mays

An emergency responder arriving at a motor vehicle accident is able to live stream to the emergency department the status of the patients and the associated trauma suffered to a patient. The ER is then able to assemble and prepare for a patient’s emergency treatment.
A surgeon live streams to residents and students a live surgery–so that they can see what work goes into a medical procedure first hand.
A visiting nurse seeing a patient in their own home video records and captures images of the patient’s wound, for which they are caring for, and sends them back to the physician.
A resident’s physical exam of a patient is streamed back to an attending physician, who can critique their work and make recommendations on questions to ask in real time. This could especially be useful when a resident consultant evaluates a patient while their attending is at home overnight.
A cardiologist in a cath lab overlays the fluoroscopy as they perform a femoral catheterization for a patient with a recent myocardial infarct.
A nurse scans the medication they are about to give the patient and confirms the correct drug and right patient by overlaying their patient profile with the person in front of them–possibly stopping a medical error.
A student brings up their notes and lab reports as they present their patient case to their attending, with data available in real time.
An oncologist can overlay the MRI scan over a patient, and show them and the family where the cancer exists.
The electronic health record at the hospital is available to caregivers, able to be updated on major changes in the patients they oversee. For instance, the recent cultures from a septic patients wound comes back positive for MRSA and the physician changes their broad spectrum antibiotics to appropriate therapy based upon sensitivities.
A pharmacist is able to scan medications and verify the proper drugs after comparing the drug with images available in the database, ensuring the right drug is dispensed.
A physical therapist can see past sessions with a patient from previous recordings, overlaying their current range of motion, identifying changes as well as progression.
Any healthcare professional could walk up to a patient’s bed and instantly see all their vitals such as pulse, BP, O2 Sats, etc.

Software eating jobs

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Steve Mays

“What happens when (Google’s self-driving cars) finally make their way onto American highways en masse? (Which, to be fair, Kurzweil predicted for 2019 back in 1999.) What happens if and when it turns out that they’re much safer than human drivers? Insurance costs will make human driving very expensive, and fewer vehicles will be sold–partly because cars will last longer, partly because fractional ownership of a pool of self-driving vehicles will make more economic sense than having your own.”

Read full article

Why we care about football

Posted on February 3, 2013 by Steve Mays

“Going forward, no other sport will ever have a run like this, because the TV-cash part of the connection can’t be recreated. Mass TV built many elements of our culture, but mass TV (except for tonight) is basically over. The new media giants of our age (Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) don’t point everyone to one bit of content, don’t trade in mass. Instead, they splinter, connecting many to many, not many to one.” — Seth Godin explains »

Virtual kidnappings; black-market online identities

Posted on January 30, 2013 by Steve Mays

From remarks by Eric Schmidt to audience at Cambridge University:

“We could see virtual kidnappings – ransoming your ID for real money,” Schmidt said. “Rather than keeping captives in the jungle, groups like Farc [in Colombia] may prefer a virtual hostage. That’s how important our online ID is.”

“But the future will be much more disruptive to terrorists than everyone else. I can’t see them operating out of caves in Tora Bora” – as al-Qaida did after the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. […] Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad reportedly raised suspicions because it didn’t have any internet connection.”

“Our online identity will become such a powerful element. Laws to protect anonymity – we may even see rise in black market where we can buy pre-made or real identities, with all their shopping and background all completely ‘real’ – verifiable online, that is. […] Both drug smugglers trying to evade police and political activists looking to hide from repressive regimes would find those useful, he said: “you’ll be able to buy an identity with fake friends and a history of purchases.”

And one more: “For anyone in the public eye, they will have to account for their past.”

The final big scene in Lincoln is the voice vote on the 13th Amendment. House members names called and they vote yes or no on slavery. If I had to guess, most of those voting against the amendment went to their graves proud of their votes. At least publically. Things move faster these days. If Todd Akin could quietly erase every instance of his “legitimate rape” remarks, would he? How about after he’s dead, would his children — or their children — hit the delte button?

Consciousness

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Steve Mays

“The idea that humans are special, that they are singled out by the gift of consciousness above all other creatures, stems from the deeply held Judeo-Christian belief that we occupy a privileged place in the order of things, a belief with a biblical but no empirical basis. We are not special. We are just one species among uncountable others.”

“Imagine a construction set of a thousand different types of LEGO bricks of distinct colors, shapes, and sizes. The human cerebral cortex has sixteen billion bricks chosen from these types, assembled according to fantastically elaborate rules, such as a red 2×4 brick is linked to a blue 2×4 but only if it is near a yellow 2×2 roof tile and a green 2×6 piece. From this is born the vast interconnectedness of the brain.”

“It is not the nature of the stuff that the brain is made out of that matters for mind, it is rather the organization of that stuff – the way the parts of the system are hooked up , their causal interactions.”

— Consciousness by Christof Koch

Technology Talent Gap

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Steve Mays

Among employees who work for Google, Mr. Obama received about $720,000 in itemized contributions this year, compared with only $25,000 for Mr. Romney. That means that Mr. Obama collected almost 97 percent of the money between the two major candidates. Apple employees gave 91 percent of their dollars to Mr. Obama. At eBay, Mr. Obama received 89 percent of the money from employees. Democrats had the support of 80 percent or 90 percent of the best and brightest minds in the information technology field.

FiveThirtyEight Blog

smays.com

“We read for the pleasure of thinking another person’s thoughts.” — Sam Harris

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