Technologies and Generations

Children no longer obey their parents and the end of the world is evidently approaching. So said a clay tablet inscribed almost 5 thousand years ago. But the world still stands, although we do go through golden and dark ages and societies rise and fall.

Technology's golden age is now, or so we hope. How are current generations influenced by it and how will they shape the future world?

Even as they age, Baby Boomers embrace emerging technologies such as smartphones and social networking. They will be the driving and demanding force behind innovation in healthcare. In the past, they drove the economy by spending and borrowing, boosting housing and stock prices, increasing demand for products and services. 

America's neglected middle child, Generation X is now the quiet driving force behind enterprise, media and information consumption. Xers endured lots of destruction, but were able to adapt and sparked a renaissance of entrepreneurship. They bring to the table a significant amount of buying power, but are less eager to spend money. Nielsen poll suggests they prefer value over social acceptance.

Millennial Generation, alternatively dubbed the Net Generation, Generation Y (or Why?), Echo-boomers, Nexters, and Digital Natives is now the largest generation in U.S history. Fueled by immigration, they outgrew the outsized Baby Boomer population and continue to grow.  Raised on a steady diet of video games, in a world where almost everything can be done with an app, fanned by economic slowdown, they are choosing to live differently and embrace the sharing economy. Since the second world war, purchases of new cars and suburban houses have propelled economic recoveries. Millennials may have lost interest in both, spending on smartphones instead. "The cheapest generation" burdened by student loans is renting instead of buying. They are demanding better integration of technology into public services, prefer healthy, natural, socially and environmentally conscious products.

Perhaps auto brands and home builders just need to leverage mobile and environmental sustainability to attract this generation? Manufacturers do think so trying to turn cars into "giant docking stations with wheels". Tesla is one example of a brand adapting to millennials - and it's the top automotive stock owned by this generation. 

One-in-four Millennials (23%) already installed at least one of Internet-of-Things products in their homes, compared to 12% of the total population. But building a true "smart home" - like the one owned by the Jetson's  -  integrating and managing multiple devices, and dealing with their eminent malfunctions needs a lot of patience. Perhaps companies like IOTAS - creating smart homes for today's renters  - have taken the right first step? 

In the coming years, Millennials will continue to drive the growth in the Internet of Things, connected cars and wearable markets, and Generation Z will inherit technology rigorously tested by prior generations. What will be their signature product and communication device? We'll know soon enough.

Join our conference "The Rise of the Millennials – Emerging Disruptive Trends". It will take place on November 21st 2015, at the Intel Auditorium in Santa Clara. 

REFERENCES

Putre L (2013). The march of the Millenials. Your hospital staff in 2025: the same, only different. Hospitals & health networks / AHA, 87 (9) PMID: 24260968

G. Vouchilas, C. Ulasewicz,  (2014) The “Not so Young” Millennial Consumer  International Journal of Arts and Commerce Vol. 3 No. 5

Pew Research Group (2010) “Americans and their gadgets” (2010) 

Costanza, D., Badger, J., Fraser, R., Severt, J., & Gade, P. (2012). Generational Differences in Work-Related Attitudes: A Meta-analysis Journal of Business and Psychology, 27 (4), 375-394 DOI: 10.1007/s10869-012-9259-4 

Becton, J., Walker, H., & Jones-Farmer, A. (2014). Generational differences in workplace behavior Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 44 (3), 175-189 DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12208

Aschenbrener CA. (1998) The future is in the present: the impact of generations. J Am Coll Dent. 65(4):23-8. PMID: 9929986

Autotrader (2013) The Next Generation Car Buyer Millennials.

M.Fitzpatrick. (2013) Why I regret making my house a smart home. 

NPD group (2015) One Quarter of Millennials Have Begun Building Smart Homes and Four-in-Ten Want One 

On M-Health, Wireless Health and Smart Plasters

M-health or mobile health is a recent term for mobile devices supporting medical practice. This term is closely related to Telemedicine (coined in the 1970s) and to another recently introduced term wireless health.

Aurametrix wrote about exciting health gadgets and devices in several last year's blogs (such as Telemedicine: part 1, Telemedicine: part 2, Devices to keep you healthy, Going for the piece of a healthcare pie)

Many companies - large and small -make use of wireless sensors to collect clinically-actionable data for point-of-care. Companies including GE, Cinterion, Cardionet, Heatlhsmart, Digi, RIM, Proteus, E-Device, MedApps, are now working in mobile health area offering products and developing prototypes. Check, for example T+ Medical, Turkcell's Saglik365, Orange's Diabeo, Telstra's My-Glucose, Cardionet's MCOT™, and numerous cell phone applications (as some people say, the Phone will become your doctor) such as Allscripts remote. And there will be many more exciting developments - portable wearable devices scanning brain for signs of depression & stress disorders,

Everyday choices determine your health better than genomics. In addition to exciting gizmos and wearable monitors measuring activity, heart rate, sleep patterns, some companies are working on tiny implantable sensors helping to monitor health and health-related behaviors.
Proteus Biomedical is implanting tiny sensors into pills that send signals translatable into messages - such as "just took lipitor at 6:20pm" - sent in a very safe and private way to a wearable plaster, or a smart-band aide. This smart plaster is also picking up information on health-related measurements such as your heart rate, breathing patterns, activity level, stress, respiration
get sends you reminders. Last September Novartis worked with Proteus on a small 20 patient study to track patients’ compliance with their blood pressure drug regimen. This year the companies will work on sensor technology in organ transplantation.


American tech companies, taking notice of the unmistakable demographic trends, have launched a surge in gudgets for aging population - dubbed the silvertech. Emergency alert services have become a proliferating category in silvertech, along with sensor systems for the home, various kinds of long-distance health monitoring and smart medication dispensers that provide reminders and control dosage. Some dispensers signal a caregiver when a dose isn’t taken or a pharmacy when it’s time for a refill.

GE scientists are developing wearable RFID sensors to detect airborne chemical agents - to alert people to the presence of environmental chemical agents in the air. A novel technology based on resonant antenna structures of RFID sensors coated with various sensing films will recognize specific volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and chemical agents with part-per-billion detection limits. The sensor could also be used to analyze a person’s breath. Simply breathing on the sensor could potentially pick up biomarkers that serve as an early signal to the presence of certain diseases such as diabetes or cancer and metabolic disorders.

Non Invasive Health Monitoring with mHealth

View more documents from Bart Collet.

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Telemedicine 2.0, part 1

by Aurametrix

The term telemedicine was coined in the 1970s by Thomas Bird. The origins of this technology date back to smoke signals in ancient times. Earliest electroni devices included STARPAHC - a van staffed by two paramedics with a variety of medical instruments including electrocardiograph and x-ray. ATS-1, the first Applied Technology Satellite was in use in 1971-1975 to provide rural health care in Alaska. Minimal television system for remote diagnosis was developed in early 70s. Applications of telemedicine in early 2000s included remote consultation and diagnosis, specialty clinical care (anesthesia, dermatology, dentistry, cardiology, psychiatry, radiology, critical care, oncology, etc), patient education, home monitoring, and continuing education.
The health care cost is rising each year, it's already 16%-17% of the GDP. Wide utilization of wireless communications can reduce the health care cost by billions of dollars on an annual basis. Here are some examples of new developments.
Cisco HealthPresence combines state-of-the-art video, audio, and medical information to create an environment similar to what most people experience when they visit their doctor or health specialist. First Cisco HealthPresence booth was installed in January 2008.

Another California company, CardioNet provides the next-generation ambulatory cardiac monitoring service with beat-to-beat, real time analysis, automatic arrhythmia detection and wireless ECG transmission.

A startup in Redwood city, CA, works on
ingestible technology: microchip-enabled medications that provide patients with valuable information to customize their therapy. Proteus’s implantable ChipSkin™ technology adds tiny active electronics to devices that use electrical energy to deliver therapy inside the body. Similar technologies are being proposed (like a medication reminder watch by a UCLA student and the MedTracker device) or developed.

If you experience unpleasant gastrointestinal symptoms, such as abdominal pain, diarrhea, bleeding, anemia or GERD, you may be tested by capsule endoscopy with PillCam® family of products from Given Imaging. Vitamin-sized capsules with miniature video cameras inside will send pictures of your GI tract to a computer for your doctor to review. For GERD diagnosis, BRAVO pH monitoring system could be most useful.
Swallowable devices such Radio pill tocan monitor players temperature . Researchers are planning larger volunteer testing events this year.

This gadget is displaying your identification card, if you need it, , but is also a Bluetooth headset device and has the features of other wireless headsets. With up to 40 hours of talk time on a full charge, the Smart Badge by Iqua is easy to carry and use, is stylish and smart. Its standby time is up to 600 hours, it vibrates to alert incoming calls silently during meetings and allows 3-way conference calls.
It also has LED lights displaying Bluetooth connection, call status, and low battery indication. With supporting cell phones, this badge also allows for voice activated dialing. For full features and specification, you may find the Pdf of the product brochure here.

To be continued.

Aurametrix is working on tools to help you evaluate your personal health risks and benefits and make the right choices.