AI-powered rooms in malls and offices can give you a checkup without a doctor present

Some of the hesitation in seeing a doctor regularly for checkups comes from embarrassment and fear, often because of people who are physically present during the consultation. The recent pandemic has made virtual consultations popular, but you still have to visit a clinic or hospital to actually perform tests like blood work or biometric scans. With today’s technologies, however, that shouldn’t even be necessary, at least for the most basic tests and diagnostics. Putting that theory into practice, this forward-looking cubical room combines advanced tools and everyone’s favorite special sauce, AI, to offer a “self-serve” clinic that can be set up almost anywhere so that people can have easier and less stressful access to healthcare.

Designer: Forward

We’re all advised to get regular checkups, especially when we start to feel something’s amiss. Unfortunately, access to healthcare services isn’t always easy or convenient. Clinics might be far away or doctors might have very long waiting times. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just walk into a room, use a few gadgets and gizmos, receive a quick diagnosis of your health, and maybe even get a legit prescription, all without even having to even physically meet with the physician? That’s the kind of quick and stress-free experience that the Forward CarePod is promising as the world’s first “AI Doctor’s Office.”

CarePod puts you in the driver’s seat of your health, almost literally considering the comfy chair inside the single-person room. You walk inside, answer a few tests to determine the kind of clinical test that needs to be done, and you use the provided tools to perform those tests, like drawing blood, swabbing your throat, taking your blood pressure, and the like. These are frontline clinical diagnostics that most nurses and doctors perform but can now also be done by yourself with the right tools, which means there will be no doctors or nurses inside CarePods. At least not human ones.

Of course, it isn’t enough to just get your diagnostic results. You’ll need a professional to interpret those results for you, which is also the job of physicians. With the CarePod system, however, that diagnosis is made by a proprietary AI that has learned from clinical expertise and the latest medical research. In addition to providing a diagnosis, that AI also formulates care plans called “Health Apps” that will guide the patient with programs and advice to address various diseases and disorders, including diabetes, hypertension, and even depression. CarePod doesn’t eliminate human doctors from the equation completely, as they are still needed for writing prescriptions or more in-depth consultations.

Impressive as all these technologies may sound, the most important aspect of CarePod is probably the fact that it can be installed almost anywhere. It is already being deployed in malls, gyms, and offices, places where clinical services are often unavailable, but it’s not hard to imagine these rooms being installed in every street corner in the future. This would give people access to healthcare that would otherwise be out of reach, which increases their chances of living healthier and longer lives.

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How Robots Are Expanding Their Fields of Work By Attaining Emotional Designs

Robots have long captured our imaginations, from the helpful household robots of science fiction to the industrial machines that streamline manufacturing processes. However, the integration of robots into our daily lives has often been hampered by the challenges they face when navigating complex human environments. These limitations have confined their utility to controlled spaces in industries such as logistics and manufacturing. But now, a groundbreaking design concept known as “Turing” is poised to change the game, bringing a fresh perspective on robotic technology.

Designer: Cambridge Consultants (Tom ShirleyAnya Pivčuka)

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Turing is not just another robot; it’s a robotic platform with an emotional design at its core. It was developed by a team of multi-disciplinary experts, including designers, engineers, and researchers, to address a significant challenge in robotics: enabling robots to work in complex human environments while fostering collaboration between humans and machines. Turing’s approach seeks to unlock the untapped potential of human-robot interaction, one of the last remaining barriers to a future where robots become our everyday companions.

In the early stages of UX testing, the team behind Turing discovered that mimicking human emotion was a highly effective means of communicating the robot’s movements and intentions. They employed journey mapping to craft a coherent set of thoughts and emotions for the robot, resulting in a personality and behavior that users could relate to and engage with. By drawing inspiration from well-known characters in animation and film, they could identify the most appropriate personality for a given environment. This adaptability allows Turing to modify its behavior based on the specific context, ensuring it doesn’t seem out of place in various settings.

Turing is designed to work in collaboration with people, capable of navigating through crowded environments using body language, gestures, and emotional cues to communicate with our subconscious. This non-verbal, intuitive communication is significantly faster than traditional speech, enabling the sub-second reaction times necessary to avoid collisions in crowded areas. Moreover, Turing’s modular nature allows it to be adapted to a wide range of industries and customized to address diverse business needs.

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The versatility of Turing makes it a game-changer in various industries:

1. Retail: In retail, Turing can assist shoppers with tasks ranging from providing general information to guiding them through the store and even carrying their shopping bags. The emotional and charming personality it displays creates a memorable shopping experience that can be tailored to each venue’s ambiance.

2. Service Industry: Turing comes to the rescue of businesses in the service industry, such as bars and restaurants, which often struggle to recruit enough staff. It can efficiently take orders and deliver food and drinks to customers, enhancing their overall experience. Its adaptability ensures it can seamlessly blend into different restaurant environments, from casual to fine dining.

3. Medical Environments: Turing plays a crucial role in medical settings by reducing the burden on healthcare professionals. It can perform repetitive, time-consuming tasks, such as dispensing medication in low-risk hospital wards. This not only frees up staff to focus on patient care but also helps maintain consistent medication schedules. However, the acceptance of robots like Turing in healthcare settings may take time, as people need to build trust in the accuracy of the tasks performed.

Turing is a groundbreaking development in the world of robotics. By embracing emotional design and a highly adaptable, modular nature, it is pushing the boundaries of human-robot interaction and addressing the limitations that have confined robots to specific industries. With Turing, the future of robotics looks promising, as it promises to bring robots out of controlled environments and into our everyday lives, as social, collaborative, and empathetic companions.

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Top 10 Medical Innovations That Are Paving The Path For Modern Healthcare

We cannot take our health and well-being for granted, and a mindset of preparedness and precaution is extremely integral to handling medical emergencies. The medical industry has been making leaps and jumps in its innovations, to provide us with top-notch medical care. Designers have been coming up with new and improved, life-saving medical designs that not only boost medical care but also relieve some of the pressure from our tireless medical force. From an award-winning inflatable stretcher design to the world’s most comfortable sleep-tracking wearable – these medical innovations are a boon to modern healthcare and a reminder that we cannot take our health for granted any longer!

1. The Inflatable Stretcher

The Inflatable Stretcher was designed by Yu-Hsin Wu, a student at Taiwan’s Shih Chien University. The stretcher is designed to be a new and updated version of the ordinary stretcher. It can transport patients in a safe and secure manner from the site of the accident to the hospital. It cushions a patient the way you would wrap someone in bubble wrap!

2. The +CLOCK

The +CLOCK isn’t just your ordinary clock, it’s a habit-building device that sits on your bedside table and tells the time. The massive clock features a carousel with 28 slots for daily meds. You can organize your meds according to the day and time, ensuring that you never miss a single dose!

3. The Ergostone Pebble

The Ergostone Pebble is a compact and versatile pouch that is made of fine-grained sand from soapstone. The unique natural mineral imparts the pouch with incredible heating and cooling properties to comfort the different parts of your body. The tactile soapstone sand inside its smooth shell of silicone, lets the Pebble softly conform to your body, while still retaining its heat or coldness.

4. Wethm

Wethm produces gentle vibrations of a train ride to slow the heart down, which is known as cardiovascular synchronization. It is a simple yet effective accessory that uses gentle sounds to lull our body and mind to sleep, providing us with a more peaceful state of rest. Wethm makes use of tender buzzing to gradually wake you up, making you feel refreshed and recharged, ready to face the day head-on.

5. The ScanWatch 2

The ScanWatch 2 provides continuous body temperature variation tracking with an extraordinary 30-day battery life. Besides tracking your workouts and sleep, it also keeps an eye on your body temperature. It functions as an early warning system, warning you about any sudden fluctuations in the body temperature.

6. The Resilience Wheelchair

The Resilience Wheelchair is anything but your ordinary wheelchair! It converts your typical rugged motorized wheelchair into an elegant chaise lounge which is available in color choices of resilient gray and classy chrome, providing the design with an elegant touch. The chair is built using plastic and leather, which ensure soft comfort and pleasant tactile experiences.

7. MicroMed

MicroMed Portable Medicine Dispenser Colors

MicroMed Pill Dispenser

MicroMed is a conceptual product design that provides customized doses of medication. It is an advanced med dispenser that allows doses based on the user’s characteristics. Data is entered on a companion app to identify and offer the correct dose to the user. The MicroMed eliminates blister packaging as it is very wasteful.

8. Orka Two

This innovative hearing aid is called the Orka Two, and it feels and looks like a pair of wireless earbuds. It features an ergonomic and aesthetic design that is an excellent option for those who don’t like wearing devices like this. The Orka Two is quite lightweight and has a “gentle curve” which provides the utmost comfort to the wearer.

9. Sito

Dubbed Sito, this compact and pocketable device is designed to be a lifesaver in dangerous situations, making deaf individuals aware of all the latest happenings in their surroundings. The gadget beams vital visual clues on the LDC display, converting ambient noise into a frequency display.

10. BHeart

Say hello to BHeart – the world’s first health tracker with an ‘endless’ battery?! What makes BHeart’s battery endless is the fact that it uses YOUR body movements to charge itself, in turn reducing your electric bill and carbon emissions by manifolds. BHeart utilizes its patent-pending energy-harvesting technology to recharge itself with the help of motion, environmental light, and body heat.

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Top 10 Medical Innovations That Are Revolutionizing Modern Healthcare in 2023

We cannot take our health and well-being for granted, and a mindset of preparedness and precaution is extremely integral to handling medical emergencies. The medical industry has been making leaps and jumps in its innovations, to provide us with top-notch medical care. Designers have been coming up with new and improved, life-saving medical designs that not only boost medical care but also relieve some of the pressure from our tireless medical force. From an award-winning inflatable stretcher design to the world’s most comfortable sleep-tracking wearable – these medical innovations are a boon to modern healthcare and a reminder that we cannot take our health for granted any longer!

1. The Inflatable Stretcher

The Inflatable Stretcher was designed by Yu-Hsin Wu, a student at Taiwan’s Shih Chien University. The stretcher is designed to be a new and updated version of the ordinary stretcher. It can transport patients in a safe and secure manner from the site of the accident to the hospital. It cushions a patient the way you would wrap someone in bubble wrap!

2. Wethm

Wethm produces gentle vibrations of a train ride to slow the heart down, which is known as cardiovascular synchronization. It is a simple yet effective accessory that uses gentle sounds to lull our body and mind to sleep, providing us with a more peaceful state of rest. Wethm makes use of tender buzzing to gradually wake you up, making you feel refreshed and recharged, ready to face the day head-on.

3. The Resilience Wheelchair

The Resilience Wheelchair is anything but your ordinary wheelchair! It converts your typical rugged motorized wheelchair into an elegant chaise lounge which is available in color choices of resilient gray and classy chrome, providing the design with an elegant touch. The chair is built using plastic and leather, which ensure soft comfort and pleasant tactile experiences.

4. Orka 2

This innovative hearing aid is called the Orka Two, and it feels and looks like a pair of wireless earbuds. It features an ergonomic and aesthetic design that is an excellent option for those who don’t like wearing devices like this. The Orka Two is quite lightweight and has a “gentle curve” which provides the utmost comfort to the wearer.

5. Sito

Dubbed Sito, this compact and pocketable device is designed to be a lifesaver in dangerous situations, making deaf individuals aware of all the latest happenings in their surroundings. The gadget beams vital visual clues on the LDC display, converting ambient noise into a frequency display.

6. The Ultrahuman Ring Air

The Ultrahuman Ring AIR is the world’s most comfortable sleep-tracking wearable! It gives the required importance to your sleep index, which provides insight into not just your sleep length but also your sleep efficiency, consistency, restfulness, and other markers. The ring also offers a Recovery Score which utilizes body signal heart rate variability and skin temperature to record your stress levels.

7. BHeart

Say hello to BHeart – the world’s first health tracker with an ‘endless’ battery?! What makes BHeart’s battery endless is the fact that it uses YOUR body movements to charge itself, in turn reducing your electric bill and carbon emissions by manifolds. BHeart utilizes its patent-pending energy-harvesting technology to recharge itself with the help of motion, environmental light, and body heat.

8. CHD-4

Congenital heart disease is an extremely common birth defect, which most of us aren’t aware of. To bring awareness to this disease, Love Hultén collaborated with Teenage Engineering to create CHD-4 – a drum machine that is a functional and modular synthesizer of sorts that produces rhythms made using ECGs of four children suffering from various forms of heart diseases.

9. The OHEALTH H1

Designed the OPPO, the OHEALTH H1 is a clean and smooth-looking device that looks harmless, unlike the scary medical devices we usually come across. It is designed to resemble a pebble, one of OPPO’s favorite natural objects, or a bar of soap. Despite its minimalist and unassuming looks, the OHealth H1 is packed with health features equivalent to six diagnostic tools.

10. Airy

Dubbed Airy, this lightweight, fashionable, and sustainable brace is meant to correct the lateral curvature of the spine. It is primarily created for adolescent girls who are affected by scoliosis. Airy is intended to be a revamped and improved version of the current back braces available in the market.

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Top 10 Medical Innovations Designed To Completely Transform Modern Healthcare

We cannot take our health and well-being for granted, and a mindset of preparedness and precaution is extremely integral to handling medical emergencies. The medical industry has been making leaps and jumps in its innovations, to provide us with top-notch medical care. Designers have been coming up with new and improved, life-saving medical designs that not only boost medical care but relieve some of the pressure from our tireless medical force. From an award-winning inflatable stretcher design to a stretchy Japanese rubber gear that helps people relearn to walk after an incident – these medical innovations are a boon to modern healthcare and a reminder that we cannot take our health for granted any longer!

1. The Inflatable Stretcher

Designed by Yu-Hsin Wu, a student at Taiwan’s Shih Chien University, the Inflatable Stretcher is intended to be a new and upgraded version of the ordinary stretcher. It aims to transport patients in a safe and securer manner from the site of the accident to the hospital. Much like wrapping someone in bubble wrap, the Inflatable Stretcher cushions the patients. It also comes along with its own first-aid kit to help treat injuries that require immediate attention.

2. The Futto

Designed by Yoshihiro Yamada, the Futto is a rather odd-looking yet ingenious wearable rubber gear that helps your muscles relearn to walk after an injury, or for the elderly. The Futto “replaces” the muscle that you utilize for walking, and strengthens the various weak points that need support, as guided by a physiotherapist. It is not intended to be a replacement for rehab exercises, but it can help to strengthen walking muscles.

3. The Resilience Wheelchair

The Resilience wheelchair is no ordinary wheelchair. It transforms the idea of a typically rugged motorized wheelchair into an elegant chaise lounge – one that doesn’t even look like a wheelchair anymore! It comes in color options of resilient gray and classy chrome, giving the design an elegant flair. And it is built using plastic and leather which offer soft comfort and pleasant tactile experiences.

4. Sito

YUPD designed a gadget for deaf individuals to always stay aware of all the latest happenings in their surroundings. Called Sito, this compact and pocketable device is meant to be a lifesaver in adverse situations by beaming vital visual clues on the LDC display and converting ambient noise into a frequency display via visual graphs on the screen.

5. AC1 Boot

Designed by Brooklyn-based mischief makers MSCHF, the Ac1 Boot is designed to explore the lighter and fun side of hopping around in walking boots that are intended for rehabilitation from a foot injury. The designer got the idea for the sneakers when he saw a person walking in medical boots down Prince Street in New York.

6. Overtone Hearing Aids

The typical hearing aids have gotten a makeover with the Overtone hearing aids! They look more modern than medical, and they’re designed to be as stylish as high-fashion TWS earbuds. The hearing aids sit comfortably around your ear, featuring a minimal design with a small ear clip and a metallic disc that looks like a Neuralink implant.

7. BHeart

Say hello to BHeart – the world’s first health tracker with an ‘endless’ battery?! What makes BHeart’s battery endless is the fact that it uses YOUR body movements to charge itself, in turn reducing your electric bill and carbon emissions by manifolds. BHeart utilizes its patent-pending energy-harvesting technology to recharge itself with the help of motion, environmental light, and body heat.

8. The OHEALTH H1

Designed the OPPO, the OHEALTH H1 is a clean and smooth-looking device that looks harmless, unlike the scary medical devices we usually come across. It is designed to resemble a pebble, one of OPPO’s favorite natural objects, or a bar of soap. Despite its minimalist and unassuming looks, the OHealth H1 is packed with health features equivalent to six diagnostic tools.

9. Kubota’s Eyeglasses

Japanese pharmaceutical startup Kubota designed special eyeglasses that can improve or even cure Myopia. Kubota’s wearable design has been amped with an array of nano projectors, which project light at the wearer’s retina in a specific pattern, to cause blurring at short distances, in turn forcing them to look further away. This helps the eyeball to morph back into its original shape and allows one’s vision to return to normal.

10. Airy

This lightweight, fashionable, and sustainable brace is called Airy, and it is designed to correct the lateral curvature of the spine. The designer created this for adolescent girls who are most affected by scoliosis. She intended to create a revamped and improved version of the current back braces in the market, and the resulting Airy not only resolves a lot of the issues with preexisting ones but is also quite comfortable.

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These Philips Headphones Were Designed So You Can Listen To Relaxing Audio As You Sleep

While this isn’t your conventional sleep wearable, the Philips Sleep headphones play a unique role in helping you get better rest. The head-conforming design lets you sleep for hours without feeling uneasy or uncomfortable; the 10-hour battery helps you listen to relaxing audio or guided meditation tracks; and the built-in active noise canceling allows you to drown out external noises like the sound of cars on the road, or a snoring partner.

Created as a collaboration Philips and sleep-audio company Kokoon, the Sleep headphones help you get the fitful rest you need whenever you’re tired, or at the end of the day. We spend a third of our lives sleeping, and it plays an integral role in just how healthy and focused we are in our day-to-day lives… but the best we’ve come up with to improve our sleep are memory-foam mattresses. The Philips x Kokoon Sleep headphones take a different, more personalized approach to sleep. Built with a unique design that fits around your head, the headphones let you listen to audio while you sleep on your back or even your sides. The comfortable in-ear design helps deliver audio to your ear, whether it’s music, frequencies, or someone talking, and powerful biometric sleep sensors know when you’ve gone to sleep, automatically fading out your audio and playing back relaxing masking noise instead (to prevent external sounds from disturbing you).

Click Here to Buy Now: $175 $285.8 (39% off) Hurry! Only 4 Days Left!

Designers: Philips & Kokoon

The Sleep Headphones’ unique design is the result of a decade of research and studying tens of thousands of head shapes to determine the one flexible design that can comfortably fit all users. The processing unit, designed with a cushioned surface, sits at the back, and flexible arms let you securely position each earpiece in your corresponding ears with little to no effort. Once worn, the Sleep Headphones help you do things like relaxing, meditating, focusing, sleeping, or even just listening to your favorite playlist or podcast.

The Sleep headphones differ from your existing earbuds, in the fact that they’re calibrated to measure your sleep activity and help you sleep well every day. Tuck them in as you’re relaxing, meditating, or heading to bed, and the headphones can play any kind of audio you like to help lull you into a state of relaxation. The audio automatically fades out as soon as the headphones detect you falling asleep, and it’s replaced by masking noise that helps keep you in sound sleep. Meanwhile, the Sleep headphones’ active noise cancellation helps silence disturbing sounds like someone snoring, traffic, a loud neighbor, or the neighbor’s louder dog!

Advanced sensors in each earbud also actively help you track your sleep daily. An accelerometer and a tiny optical heart rate monitor help the Sleep Headphones know whether you’re relaxed, or how much you move around while sleeping. This information is displayed on the Kokoon app, giving you a comprehensive breakdown of how you’ve slept, while also letting you compare your sleep quality over a period of weeks and months.

The headphones are controlled through the Kokoon app, which allows you to access its features like listening to meditation audio or binaural soundscapes, and even tap into Kokoon’s AI sleep coach that helps create your sleep schedule for you. The app even integrates with apps like YouTube, Netflix, Spotify, Apple Music, and Audible on your phone, allowing you to watch videos, play music, or listen to podcasts through the Kokoon. To control playback, buttons on the main unit help you adjust the volume, so you don’t need to reach for your phone every few seconds… and a built-in microphone also lets you make voice calls with your Sleep Headphones

The Philips x Kokoon Sleep Headphones come with a universal design, although the earpieces themselves have different-sized silicone buds you can choose from. A USB-C port on the main unit lets you charge your headphones, giving you up to 10 hours of battery life on a full charge. The headphones come along with a soft-shell travel case so you can carry them on holidays too, and your purchase entitles you to a 1-year warranty on the product, along with a 1-year free subscription to the digital sleep coach and sound library within the Kokoon app.

Click Here to Buy Now: $175 $285.8 (39% off) Hurry! Only 4 Days Left!

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Cleverly Designed Pill-Bottle With Gumball Mechanism Will Dispense a Single Pill Every Time You Press Down

Every memory I’ve had of opening a pill bottle (whether for vitamins, painkillers, or even a bottle of Tic Tac) has involved me shaking the bottle in my hand, dispensing way too many pills, and then putting all the excess pills back one by one. No matter how small or wide the pill bottle’s opening, you’re either struggling to open the bottle, take the pills out, or put the pills back in because the bottle vastly overestimated how many you’d need. While that isn’t really one of life’s biggest problems, it’s definitely one worth solving – even more so for people with limited control over their mobility. Designed to make dispensing pills easy every single time, the SoloPill is an award-winning pill bottle that uses a mechanism borrowed from the popular gumball machine.

Designer: Solopill Inc.

With a form factor that’s reminiscent of a pepper mill, the SoloPill comes with a unique mechanism that segregates the pills before dispensing them one by one. The mechanism is quite similar to the one you’d see on a gumball machine, and to activate it, all you do is press down on the top. A single press causes the mechanism to collect and segregate individual pills into a ratcheted rotating funnel, dropping them one by one out of the opening at the bottom and into the SoloPill’s collecting plate. Need two pills? Press twice. Simple!

While taking medicines is by no stretch a fun activity, the SoloPill makes one aspect of it easier. It’s perfect for people who struggle with pill bottles due to limited mobility or even visibility, allowing you to easily dispense the right amount of pills even in the dark or at night. While designed to be used with relative ease, the SoloPill has a built-in child lock to prevent kids from getting their hands on your medication. Its clear design makes it perfect for seeing the pills inside, so you know when you’re running low, and there’s ample space for branding or labeling, so you know which medicine you’re taking.

The SoloPill is a winner of the Red Dot Product Design Award for the year 2023.

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Samsung Reveals Revolutionary OLED Panel with Built-in Fingerprint Scanner and Heart Rate Sensor

Samsung Display, a subsidiary of electronics giant Samsung, unveiled a world’s first OLED display with its own integrated fingerprint scanner capable of monitoring its user’s blood pressure as well as heart rate. Dubbed the “Sensor OLED”, Samsung revealed its innovative new display at the Display Week 2023, an exhibition for the electronic display industry currently being held in Los Angeles. The Sensor OLED, Samsung Display mentions, is poised to be a powerful tool for health monitoring right within your smartphone or tablet.

Designer: Samsung Display

The Sensor OLED is more than just a scanner and monitor. It’s a comprehensive health assistant designed with you in mind. It has the capabilities to measure stress levels, tracl sleep patterns, and provide essential data to enhance users’ overall health and wellness. According to Samsung Display, in order to take accurate readings, measurements need to be taken from both arms simultaneously, quite similar to how you would with the Kardia device by AliveCor. The OLED screen offers multitouch abilities, but goes beyond by also being able to recognize both left and right hand fingers at the same time. This new display helps simplify health monitoring and increase accessibility by allowing anyone with a smartphone to measure their fitness without splurging for a fitness wearable.

This cutting-edge piece of technology is realized thanks to Samsung Display’s state-of-the-art organic photodiode (OPD) technology. The OPD, a light-sensitive sensor, is the beating heart of the Sensor OLED. It adeptly captures fingerprints and heart rate data, incorporating these vital features right into the panel. Samsung hasn’t really unveiled any roadmap for when the display will officially find itself on devices, but it could possibly bring an end to the cheap fitness tracker industry.

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An Apple Watch strap with an integrated pillbox seems like quite a brilliant idea

Although conceptual, the Apple Watch Pillbox highlights a rather novel use-case for the company’s health-tracking smartwatch, building on its personality of being a life-saving piece of tech.

Every year, as Tim Cook takes the stage to announce the next series of the Apple Watch, he simultaneously also talks about how many letters and emails he’s received from people claiming that the watch saved their life. Whether it was detecting a fall or a crash, to any anomalies in body temperature or heart rate, the watch is great at knowing when something is off (either noticeably or not) and alerting you or your caretaker as soon as possible. This watch strap with an integrated pillbox takes the watch one step further, helping people stay healthy by following their medication routine religiously.

Designer: Zhiwen

Designed as a simple silicone strap and sleeve that attaches to your Apple Watch, the Apple Watch Pillbox gives you a tiny pill container right underneath the watch body, letting you easily carry your medication with you wherever you go. The watch permanently sits on your wrist so the chances of forgetting to carry your meds are much lower, and a health-monitoring app on the watch constantly tracks your health and reminds you to take your meds at exactly the right time.

The way the app, at least in this situation, works is by tracking the wearer’s blood pressure – a feature that isn’t there on the Apple Watch yet, but we’re working with hypotheticals, at this point. When the watch detects an anomaly, it gives you a gentle notification, allowing you to be aware. If the situation worsens, the watch lets you know it’s time to take your meds, and if there’s no improvement, the watch alerts your caretaker/guardian so they can check in on you. Caretakers can also remotely keep track of your health stats too, just as a safety measure.

Although the Apple Watch can’t actively measure its wearer’s blood pressure, the idea of having a pillbox attached to your watch has various merits. For starters, the watch can measure your heart rate, take an EKG, and even check your blood O2 levels. It’s estimated that in the future, the watch will be able to non-invasively check your blood sugar levels. In such a scenario, knowing exactly when to take an insulin shot would be absolutely crucial. Similarly, for people suffering from a variety of ailments that require monitoring and medication, having a health tracker on your wrist along with a pillbox sounds like a pretty neat idea.

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This ‘Trackpad For Your Mouth’ lets people with limited mobility use their tongues to control cursors

Putting the edge of computing at the tip of your tongue…

Meet MouthPad, it’s exactly what it sounds like. Designed by the folks at Augmental (a spin-off of the MIT Media Lab), the MouthPad is a Bluetooth-powered mouthpiece that lets anyone control electronic appliances with their tongue. A touch-sensitive panel sits against the roof of your mouth, allowing you to use your tongue as a finger of sorts to navigate interfaces. Tongue taps are registered as left clicks, while mouth gestures like pursing your lips (pouting duckface, for the Millennial and Gen Z readers) registers a right click. Through the MouthPad, individuals can now perform a variety of tasks with just their tongues. These tasks include sending emails, illuminating a room, enhancing photographs, and even engaging in video games. Additionally, Augmental guarantees that the mouthpiece’s sleek design will not impede speech, allowing users to communicate verbally with ease while wearing the device.

Designer: Augmental

Every year, nearly half a million people suffer a spinal injury globally. The effects of these can be as complex as losing all mobility from your neck down, leaving you with just your mouth to communicate as well as control devices. Up until now, devices like the QuadStick have been the standard, with a joystick that you bite down on and control with your mouth. The MouthPad offers a much more discreet and nuanced input method, turning your tongue into an 11th finger that can be used to move cursors and interact with interfaces. The tongue is a uniquely nimble and flexible organ. Touted as one of the strongest muscles in the body, the tongue’s muscular system is complex, allowing it to move in a variety of directions, and making it a perfect organ to control the MouthPad.

The MouthPad is an intraoral interface no sleeker than a pair of invisible braces. Designed to fit onto your palate, the MouthPad has a surface that responds to touch, letting you control it with your tongue in the same way you would use your finger on a trackpad. The electronics rest within a 3D-printed brace made from dental-grade resin, with a battery unit and SoC located on the side, sitting between your teeth and your inner cheek. All the electronics are enclosed within the resin, so they never interact with saliva.

The saliva, however, does present a unique challenge. If you’ve ever tried using your phone with wet fingers, you know that it’s close to impossible. The water interferes with the touch-input, registering all sorts of wrong inputs. The Augmental team, however, mentions that this ‘wet touchpad’ is smart enough to mitigate the effects of the saliva-coated tongue, using machine-learning to accurately register input.

Bespoke-designed for the wearer, the MouthPad fits snugly into the user’s mouth, with a design that feels comfortable enough to be worn for hours at an end. It doesn’t need any software to run, working quite like a Bluetooth mouse, and is compatible with all popular desktop and mobile platforms. The battery gives it 5+ hours of continuous use, and once done, the MouthPad can be kept back in its case which doubles as its charging station.

“As our lives become increasingly intertwined with technology, and the world expands from the physical to the digital, it’s more important than ever to ensure that everyone has equal access to control inputs and new interfaces,” says Tomás Vega, Co-Founder and engineer at Augmental. The company developed and tested prototype units on people with limited mobility and quadriplegia with great success and a fairly positive response, and are now looking to also extend the MouthPad’s use to ‘hands-busy’ scenarios such as surgeons, gamers, astronauts, lab technicians, and factory-line workers. The MouthPad is currently available to potential buyers in the US, who can sign up to be on the waitlist.

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