Using technology to improve your health

For me, this is an area of interest - Integrated in technology, user experience and interaction design. Obviously, writing as Crohn's Disease patient since 2002, my ph.d and research work are focus on innovation solutions to improve my and your health.

CUE - Tracking Your Health Information

We can call to these Cue makers a “deep health tracker". Actually it is a tracking of users health on a molecular level (It is similar to the diabetes measuring), rather than more remotely monitoring signals like blood pressure or heart rate.

(Image source: CUE)

The idea for this system came after the founders understand that to much people were flooding the healthcare system wanting to know only whether they had a flu or not, which I considered as an important situation but not an emergency. “All these people were seeking this one piece of information, and we thought that there had to be a much simpler way for people to find out the information without having to stand in a huge emergency room line or wait for a doctor’s appointment”.

Pre-order (Shipping only starts on Spring, 2015) 

https://cue.me/product

HOLIBRAILLE - Helping Blind Users 

In partnership with INESC-ID (Universidade Técnica de Lisboa) and LaSIGE (Departamento de Informática da Universidade de Lisboa), seven researchers were involved with the development of a system that combines chord input with a series of vibrations that notify a blind user of what the system is registering. The HoliBraille case can be attached to a Samsung Android phone and feeds information to the user in the form of vibrations felt through the fingers before the chord is committed and an error has been made, through an Arduino. To talk to the phone case via Bluetooth an open source micro-controller is used. The case then passes the information by activating an individual vibro-tactile motors next to the fingers that make up the chords.

(Image source: TechCrunch)

"Augmenting Braille Input through Multitouch Feedback" (2013)

H. Nicolau, K. Montague, J. Guerreiro, D. Marques, T. Guerreiro, C. Stewart, V. L. Hanson

Abstract


" Current touch interfaces lack the rich tactile feedback that allows blind users to detect and correct errors. This is especially relevant for multitouch interactions, such as Braille input. We propose HoliBraille, a system that combines touch input and multi-point vibrotactile output on mobile devices. We believe this technology can offer several benefits to blind users; namely, convey feedback for complex multitouch gestures, improve input performance, and support inconspicuous interactions. In this paper, we present the design of our unique prototype, which allows users to receive multitouch localized vibrotactile feedback.
 Preliminary results on perceptual discrimination show an average of 100% and 82% accuracy for single-point and chord discrimination, respectively. Finally, we discuss a text-entry application with rich tactile feedback."

Paper source
http://web.ist.utl.pt/hugo.nicolau/publications/2013/uist13.pdf

PEEKVISION - Portable Eye Examination Kit

The project aims to improve opthalmic health in underdeveloped countries by adapting smartphones with a clip-on hardware and an app. Created by a team of ophthalmologists, developers and engineers, PEEK is a combination of different technologies that can be used by a non-expert with short training to carry out a range of eye-health checks and help prevent and diagnose blindness.

(Image source: Dezeen Magazine)

"By harnessing mobile phone apps, hardware and rigorous scientific testing, we have created an easy to use, affordable and portable system for testing eyes anywhere in the world - from surgeries to patients’ homes".

Designs of The Year 2014 (Technology category) 
http://www.dezeen.com/tag/designs-of-the-year-2014/

The app will be available soon ... 
http://www.peekvision.org