Set 11, 2017 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
Apple managed to instantly raise the excitement levels of the developers in attendance at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with the introduction of the wonderful ARKit framework.
What we didn’t plan for on the back of that was the slew of prototypes and app ideas utilizing ARKit that would ultimately end up exciting device owners. Now, as ARKit approaches the mainstream, we’re seeing a set of highly polished creations, including one called MeasureKit by developer Rinat Khanov.
A number of creative developers had the same train of thought when ARKit was first announced. In addition to the usual gaming implementations, we have already seen some developers showing just how performant and accurate ARKit will be when used for measuring purposes.
Khanov has taken things a few steps further with MeasureKit by ensuring that his app best uses ARKit and the real world to be able to offer a variety of different ways to measure using nothing more than the device and a little bit of user interaction.
The power of this tool comes from the fact that it offers a very simple mechanism to measure different things in different situations. And all of this is offered to the user with a very small learning curve, making it essentially accessible to anyone who owns an iOS 11-powered iPhone and is in need of having something measured.
From a feature perspective, users can expect to find a trajectory mode, the ability to measure distance from a specific point of reference, as well as being able to measure angles, height of individuals, and even build cubes that are placed into the real world.
This is definitely by far one of the most fun and innovative ways to use ARKit, but which is also applicable to most users in the real world. When it goes live on the App Store, presumably in the coming weeks, it’s almost a given that it will have an instant user-base.
It’s likely that MeasureKit will be joined on the iOS App Store by an impressive range of ARKit-powered apps, including zombie games, portal-based experiences that look to transport people to other worlds, and even official offerings by multinational retailers and companies like IKEA.
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Lug 30, 2017 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
Sequin dresses, champagne and smiling faces counting down to the new year. Some kisses here and some resolutions there. This time, Samantha thought everything will be different. She made a resolution every year to change her lifestyle into something fitter but she could not make a lasting change in the long run. But this time, she was absolutely determined. In the first weeks of January, she bought new shoes and active wear, she started to spinning class twice a week and promised herself a biking weekend as a reward in the spring.
But then in February, Jim’s birthday celebration collided with her work out session, so she missed it out. Afterward, her mom needed to be brought to the hospital due to chest pains, while another time her fridge broke and needed to wait for the technician. March was already upon her when she realized – she does not go to the gym anymore.
Her story is one of ours, no matter whether it’s about sports, eating, reading more or working less. I spoke to Jurriaan van Rijswijk, Chairman of the Games for Health Europe Foundation, about why it is so hard to adopt new habits. The gamification expert said that motivation is one factor in changing behavior, but loyalty towards the subject of change is something people usually don’t consider.
The money versus time issue is often why desired long–term behavioral change fails. So instead of trying to buy your way into change with sport clothing items or pricey devices, at first, you should start spending time exercising with limited resources and technology. Then gradually the new behavior becomes valuable, and you will spend more and more of your valuable time doing it.
Technology can be your coach supporting lasting change
The key to success is time commitment or loyalty to the subject. Both are really hard to reach, but there are factors making it easier. Some people are motivated by the feeling of community and socializing, others by getting rewards for certain achievements, competing against others, looking at data and measurements about small successes or making the whole process fun.
Technology can combine many of these factors and could become a resource liberating tool helping us spend more time on the desired goal. I have been measuring my health parameters and vital signs for years. I know that sometimes I run for another ten minutes just to beat my score from yesterday. However, there are many people for whom it is not enough motivation if you show their raw data, they need challenges, rewards or some community. Gamification can do the trick for them.
Gamification is the new buzzword in healthcare
Game play focuses and controls our attention, taps into our innate strengths, thrills us utterly, and compels us to greater resilience in the attainment of more powerful and effective skills. That’s why many believe it is perfect for behavior change in healthcare. A game is more than the automatic collector of vital signs and notifications. Gamified services engage us, keep us motivated and helps us down the bumpy road of change. It’s the combination of a great buddy and a considerate parent. That’s why I believe gamified solutions will spread like epidemics in healthcare as well.
But it is really difficult to find the right balance for digital tools to act as sources of motivation not turning into burdensome constraints or “digital whips”. In 2016, Fitbit announced that it was partnering with employers, corporations to track employees and mine that data in order to monitor employee health habits. Fitbit was introduced way before in several companies as “the corporate fitness tracker” creating common challenges and competitions for employees – which is fun and motivating. In an interview, Adam Pellegrini, VP of Digital Health for Fitbit told me Houston Methodist implemented a month-long step challenge where employees went head to head with their departmental CEOs. Average daily step count to beat was 16,000! Now that’s what I call a challenge!
But imagine that your boss knows about your fitness goals, sees your data – and has the capacity to forward it to the health insurance company deciding about your premiums! Imagine that you are making a lot of effort to lose weight but still your employer considers that it is not enough… Where are the boundaries of a motivating tool? How far could employers, moreover health insurance companies go when it comes down to the health or fitness issues of their employers or users? Complex and difficult questions which need to be answered soon!
Great game design is difficult
As you could already discern from the above, game design is a very difficult area. You need something which pulls you in but does not make you toxically addicted, which is fun but also informative, which creates achievable but not that easy challenges. Not to speak about the most problematic part of a gamified device or app: its ability to achieve lasting change.
There was a recent study which examined the effects of Pokémon Go. Shortly after the release of the little monster hunting adventure, there was a lot of enthusiasm that it would be a healthy addiction by getting users more active. Pokémon Go players’ steps went up from an average of 4256 steps per day to 5123 steps in the first week of playing the game. After that, though, there was a gradual decline back to where they started by the sixth week. That pattern was consistent across various subgroups based on neighborhood walkability, income level, age, and more.
However, there are good examples of apps and services that provide motivation, rewards and reinforce commitment. If we respect the fact that it will only work when participation is voluntary and self-motivated, they could really help in achieving great things. Here, I collected some of the most widely known game-based digital technologies in healthcare.
1) Physical fitness
I already mentioned Fitbit & Co: how common challenges can be set up through the Fitbit community interfaces and how competition could motivate better gym performances and step counts. EveryMove also counts on your competitiveness. It collects data from trackers and apps we already use to allow friends to compare one another’s progress. Social motivation, such as seeing that my friends went for a run today but I haven’t yet, is a strong one.
Blue Shield California, a not–for–profit health insurer, attempts to make wellness fun via social media. Participants earn points, badges, status, and see their progress. Blue Shield claims that 80 per cent of its employees have participated, and had a 50 per cent drop in smoking prevalence.
CaféWell does something similar with its health programs. It is focusing on giving guidance and support to people who want to live a healthier life. In its personalized programs, they focus on your own needs in order to eat better, incorporate exercise into your life, reduce stress or walk that extra mile. The app called Pact goes even further: it tracks fitness progress on mobile devices, and those members who don’t meet their fitness standards have to contribute money to a fund that rewards members who do meet their standards. The idea is simple: if you have to pay for something with your hard-earned money, you will think twice before growing lazy.
2) Medication and chronic condition management
Mango Health developed a smartphone application designed to motivate patients to take their medications on time. Users set the times when medications should be taken, and the app reminds them. It also provides information about the medications and warns about drug interactions and side effects. By taking the medications properly, users earn points towards gift cards or charitable donations in raffles held weekly.
Bayer’s Didget blood glucose meter, which connects to a Nintendo DS gaming platform, is intended for kids between 4 to 14. It helps manage their diabetes by rewarding them for consistent blood glucose testing. As points accumulate, new game levels and options unlock. There are leader boards with kids who collected the most points, web games and an online community as well.
The Austrian startup, mySugr also offers its gamified solutions for diabetes management in a fun way both for children (mySugr Junior app) and adults. As the creator of the cute diabetes monster, mySugr has already over a million registered users, is available in 52 countries and in 13 different languages. It was recently acquired by the global pharmaceutical company, Roche.
3) Gamification for kids
It is especially important to apply gamification for medical solutions aimed at children as they usually do not understand the importance of therapies or drugs for their health, in the long run, they just consider the short-term miseries. They do not want to swallow bitter pills or eat vegetables, do not want to go to therapy or stay in the hospital. Gamification can help forget kids that they are undergoing therapy or medical treatment. If they believe they are swallowing the secret of a long-gone civilization with the pill and only their enteric bacteria could decipher that code, they would gladly take any drug.
For example, the American Red Cross developed an app called Monster Guard focused on helping prepare children for emergencies. It teaches kids through “Monster Guard Academy” how to prepare and stay safe during home fires, hurricanes, floods or other disasters, and they get points and medals for completing tasks.
Raising a health-focused and fit child is also easier through gamification. Leapband or Vivofit jr., for example, encourages kids to stay on the move. The latter tracks steps, sleep and 60 minutes of daily recommended activity. Kids are able to earn coins to redeem for agreed-upon rewards, while parents can monitor the kiddos’ steps and active minutes, assign chores and even hand out those virtual rewards.
4) Physical therapy and rehabilitation
After a serious injury or a stroke, it is difficult and time-consuming to reach even an agreeable level of independence regarding movement or other activity. If you have trouble imagining what it’s like to tackle everyday challenges after waking up from an accident, try the SCI Hard gaming app developed by the University of Michigan. Gamified therapies could help in making rehabilitation more fun, stretching abilities playfully and divert attention from pain. Reflexion Health uses a video feedback system to correct the movements of patients practice physical therapy based exercises. The system works in patients’ homes. Movements are modeled by animated figures. Motion guided technology compares patients’ movements with those of the models and gives guidance and correction suggestions.
A Canadian company, GestureTek Health develops applications specific to health, disability, and rehabilitation. Its VR exercise programs enable patients to have fun while stretching their physical and cognitive capabilities. MindMaze created devices, which use virtual reality, brain imaging and gaming technologies to retrain the brain in stroke victims. It also works on solutions for spinal cord injury and amputee patients.
In the medical world, compliance is the word that is used to describe to what extent patients abide themselves by the therapy. Yet, as patients are more and more empowered, the expression becomes more and more offending as it assumes that patients are blindly following the doctor’s commands and do not follow recommendations voluntarily. Instead, they want to actively take part in their health, they want the patient-doctor relationship to be on an equal level. Instead of compliance, they want to be motivated on the long-run.
With digital health powered healthcare in the future, gamification will be the help already motivated patients need in order to stick to therapies without burdening efforts.
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Lug 30, 2017 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
Apple sta lavorando a un paio di occhiali per realtà aumentata e l’iPhone potrebbe fungere da controller. È quanto si apprende da un nuovo brevetto che descrive un sistema capace di combinare i due dispositivi per garantire una migliore fusione tra Realtà Aumentata e mondo reale.
Nello specifico questi occhiali smart, dotati di schermo semi-trasparente, sarebbero capaci di posizionare con precisione elementi tridimensionali nel mondo circostante, sfruttando sensori e GPS per calcolare l’esatta posizione dell’utente. Nell’esempio documentato viene mostrata l’evoluzione di un’applicazione per le Mappe, che segna percorsi e punti di interesse nell’ambiente circostante.
Tale sistema sarebbe un’alternativa a quanto abbiamo in parte già visto da uno dei recenti video di applicazioni sviluppate con ARKit, dove l’utente semplicemente inquadrava il mondo circostante con l’iPhone per vedere le indicazioni stradali su muri e strade attraverso la fotocamera del dispositivo.
Qui però l’iPhone avrebbe un altro ruolo, quello di controller per interagire con il software: occhiali come questi infatti non potrebbero offrire un’interazione touch come quella a cui siamo abituati con lo schermo degli smartphone. Ecco che quindi il sistema sarebbe in grado di riconoscere la posizione del dito dell’utente sullo schermo, virtualizzando probabilmente un cursore sul display degli occhiali per permettere all’utente di effettuare click e selezioni.
Continuando sull’esempio evidenziato dal brevetto, i cui dettagli sono stati resi noti dal sito AppleInsider, punti di riferimento, edifici noti e altri oggetti tipici sono comunemente denominati POI (“Point Of Interest”) nelle applicazioni di mapping, inclusa l’app Mappe di Apple stessa.
La Casa di Cupertino integra già POI per alcune funzionalità di ricerca in Mappe; sono usati, ad esempio per cercare ristoranti e stazioni di servizio. La proprietà intellettuale per la quale Apple ha chiesto il brevetto, va oltre i punti di interesse visualizzabili su una mappa in due dimensioni, prevedendo modalità utilizzabili nell’ambito della Realtà Aumentata.
Nello specifico è previsto quando mostrare POI nelle vicinanze, visualizzando quali rilevanti o in qualche modo vicini alla vista nel mondo reale. Sfruttando dati relativi a latitudine, longitudine e altitudine, il sistema può elaborare l’ubicazione rispetto ai POI target visualizzando dettagli sullo schermo.
Dopo avere determinato la posizione dei POI, indicazioni grafiche con annotazioni interattive sono sovrapposte sull’immagine catturata. I sensori, inclusi quelli di profondità di future fotocamere, possono essere sfruttati per collocare marcatori in punti ben determinati. Gli indicatori sono in qualche modo ancorati alle rispettive controparti presenti nel mondo reale. Se, ad esempio, l’utente comincia a spostarsi a sinistra, gli edifici mostrati sullo schermo si spostano di conseguenza, così come i punti di interesse mostrati sul display, come se fossero “incollati” alle varie posizioni.
Nel brevetto si mostrano vari modi per interagire con i POI, tenendo ad esempio anche del modo in cui l’utente ha l’iPhone in mano (in verticale o in orizzontale). Il brevetto di Apple è un’estensione di un brevetto che era stato registrato dalla tedesca Metaio, azienda specializzata in Realtà Aumentata acquisita da Cupertino nel 2015.
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Giu 26, 2017 | News on Augmented, Mixed and Virtual Reality
The revolution in driverless vehicles will make many jobs obsolete. In the US alone, it is estimated that driverless vehicles will wipe out 4.1m jobs. Truck drivers, delivery drivers, taxi drivers and Uber drivers will be out of work, and sooner than you might think. But automation can be a force for good, doing jobs more cheaply, safely and efficiently. In fact, there’s one service that’s crying out for more automation: the ambulance service.
Demand for ambulance services is growing rapidly in developed countries due to a combination of a growing and ageing population, an increase of chronic diseases, and a scarcity of primary care clinics and providers. This leaves the emergency services overburdened, with a dismal outlook for the future.
With driverless vehicles already on the road, some governments are looking into the possibility of driverless ambulances. Driverless ambulances and other technology could take some of the strain off the emergency services, freeing paramedics to deal with high-risk patients where each minute waiting for treatment significantly reduces a patient’s chance of surviving. This would include cardiac arrest patients, where brain damage typically starts within four to six minutes.
Initially, health services could introduce a fleet of driverless ambulances alongside their current manned models to deal with low-risk patients – essentially starting out as “medical taxis”. Low-risk patients would be picked up by a driverless ambulance and transported to the nearest hospital or clinic for treatment. With the introduction of these ambulances, the need for paramedics to respond to every call – regardless of severity – would be greatly reduced.
However, not everyone is in favour of automated ambulances. One survey of just over 1,000 people in the US found that around half said they would be comfortable riding in one.
Supported by drones
As well as delivering Amazon packages, spying on neighbours and conducting military strikes, drones could also be used by health services to take the pressure off the ambulance service. They would be especially useful for delivering medical equipment to remote locations. In fact, a start-up called Zipline is already successfully delivering blood and medicine across Rwanda. But these services could also be used in developed countries. For example, if a doctor in a remote rural location has to treat a patient with a rare condition, but she lacks the necessary medical supplies at her GP clinic or local hospital, a drone could deliver the supplies. Alternatively, drones could be used to deliver vital medical equipment to a drop point prior to the manned ambulance’s arrival. This would allow the patient to be treated as soon as the paramedics arrive.
Drones could also be used to transport specialised equipment, medication or even blood products between hospitals. This would reduce the need for ambulances to drive further distances to find somewhere that can treat their patient.
Drones could be used to drop essential medical supplies in remote or hard to reach areas. gualtiero boffi/Shutterstock
Predicting emergencies
For several years, police forces around the world have been using sophisticated algorithms to predict areas where crime is most likely to occur. This allows police departments to deploy officers to areas of “high demand”. While these Minority Report-style systems have proven to be controversial, a similar system that predicts illness hotspots is less likely to raise eyebrows.
A similar system could be used by ambulance services. It would collect previous trip data from the ambulances (both manned and unmanned). The software would take into consideration the time of year, weather, public events (such as concerts and protests), populations (such as elderly or deprived) and past emergencies that ambulances have responded to. This would enable the driverless ambulances to locate themselves within high-risk areas when they are not in use, allowing them to respond much faster to calls.
As these systems log more and more information, they will become increasingly more accurate at predicting medical emergencies, in the same way that data mining tools, used by social media and advertising companies, get better at figuring out what food, clothes, movies and so on you like best, and what you might like in the future.
These new methods may seem far off, but depending on how fast healthcare systems invest and adopt these technologies, they could be changing the way we receive medical treatment within decades. In the face of ever rising demand, technology is likely to be the saviour of ambulance services, making it faster, more effective and safer. However, it may take a while before the public are comfortable with the idea.
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