Handheld diagnosis - GE's Vscan

This week I touch on a topic that is close to my heart but is not exactly consumer technology.

A set of engineers across the world are making machines smaller, portable, economical and more viable to ensure healthcare reaches everyone. Last week, GE took a huge step towards this goal by launching Vscan, a pocket-friendly machine — it is just 3 inches wide by 5.3 inches long and weighs about 500 grams, almost the size of a mobile phone — which houses powerful, ultra-smart ultrasound technology that provides an immediate, non-invasive method to secure visual information about the body. Vscan is battery operated and can easily be taken to any clinic, hospital or primary healthcare setting.

Vscan is designed to be complementary to the stethoscope, helping physicians go beyond what they can hear and see. It can scan up to 30 patients with its one-hour power backup and doctors can store results on its 4GB memory card, expandable up to 32 GB.
The high image quality, combined with simple, familiar, intuitive interface can be controlled using the thumb. Using a familiar dial key interface, physicians can zoom in and out, pan left and right for analysis and even add voice annotations. The docking station helps the transfer of data to a PC for organising or sharing the results with experts over the Internet.

Products like Vscan, which costs just Rs 6 lakh, can become a boon for countries like India where rural healthcare is in a bad shape. They can help state-of-the-art diagnostic technologies to primary health centres in small village without being reliant on the erratic power supply.

However, with this comes the added responsibility of ensuring that these devices are not misused by quacks for illegal gender determination and half-baked diagnosis

Companies like Siemens and SonoSite too are doing their bit with portable and cost affective medical equipments. What is required now is for the government to get these low-cost products to our primary health centres and make sure the technology reaches those who are in desperate need for it.
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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday Feb 28, 2010

Shoot the message

From podcast to videocast and now video email, the evolution has been swift. Initially, video email was limited to a select few and was supposed to be the next frontier. But now your four-year-old can send you an email even though he can’t type a word with just a few clicks.
The solution I present to you is not for four-year-olds, but it is easy enough for my eight-year-old niece to send me a video mail every now and then. TokBox.com is not exactly new, but as soon as I discovered this free video messaging service I wanted to go out, jump up in joy and share it with you like a new toy.

How does it work? It uses the webcam and microphone built into your PC/laptop to record a video message and send it as an email to the recipient. Since the recipient could be on a slow connection or his mailbox of a limited size, Tokbox just sends an image grab of the video and a link inviting the recipient to check out the video message. There was no buffering or stopping on the 256 kbps broadband I checked it on and the videos played seamlessly. The interface is clean and simple; in fact, it took my niece just about 15 minutes to master.

The Tokbox site uses the Adobe Flash plug-in, which means you don’t have to install anything on your PC to use the software. To avoid having to go to multiple websites, you can shoot and share the video with your Twitter and Facebook friends directly from the website. You can also login to AOL Messenger, Google Talk, MSN Messenger and Yahoo using the Tokbox instant messenger, giving you a single screen to send and receive video emails. And if you want, you can video blog to Twitter, Facebook or MySpace all from the same page.

TokBox lets you invite your friends to use the site, but this is not necessary for them to watch your message. But they will have to register to send back a video reply. In case your friends are also online on TokBox, you can always do a video call.

TokBox even has some graphic templates in the greetings section that let you overlay your video with graphics to give it a greeting card feel.

On the flip side, the quality of the full-screen video playback is pretty bad. But that is a small price to pay for a brilliant free service like this.

So what are you waiting for, send me a video mail.
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The above article appeared in the Indian Express, on Sunday Jan 10, 2010 (Yes, 01/01/10)

For a better view of life - Review FARVIEW

Though we care a lot for the differently-abled in modern society, we often tend to forget about them as far as cutting-edge technology is concerned. This is why a show called Techshare held in UK in the middle of September caught my attention. Though I could not make it there to see things live, products from a company called Optelec did make an impression, especially a device called Far View.

While Far View might look like a regular digital camera, you soon realise that there is more to it than meets the eye. Far View is like any digital camera with a macro mode for viewing things up close and a tele mode for looking at things at a distance, up to 42x magnification. The 300-gram gadget has a battery life of approximately four hours and easily fits into any pocket. But here is why this gadget is special:

Firstly, it acts as a magnifying glass for those with impaired vision. For instance, if someone wanted to read a book with small fonts, the Far View can be used with a desk stand over the document and magnify the words on its 4.3" screen. It even has four LED lights to light up the area if you are in a dark environment. The screen switch to standard colour, high-contrast black and white, (also white on black), high-contrast yellow on blue and blue on yellow depending on the user’s requirements. Though the buttons on all four sides can be annoying at first, they are designed to ensure that the users remember what is where.

There is also a big LED on top of the device to show when it is on. It can also be switched from the macro to tele mode in one move. The tele view allows users to read things that are on display at a distance, like a blackboard in the classroom, or a display board at an airport.
The Far View can also be used to record information, be it a visiting card or an important notice. It is also helpful for those who find it difficult to write down everything on the board during a class.

The camera is positioned in the centre and the snapshot functionality allows users to capture close or distant objects, complete documents and multiple pages of a book or magazine, and then read through them later on the large screen with absolute clarity. Though the internal memory is designed for only 100 images, it can be extended using a memory card. The device also has a USB port for connecting it to a PC or a larger external monitor.

During my research I found that Optelec has a dealer in Mumbai called Barrier Break.
The Far View can be purchased for US$ 1,495 in the US; the special pricing for India is still not available.

For More information, please see Opeltec's Website

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The above review was printed in the Indian Express, Issue dated 4th of October 2009

Nivio Companion - Review

Nivio Companion
Finally something that can be put to use anywhere you need a spare PC, without the price of licences for software and the effort to guard against viruses and crashes

Computing by default is not known to be stress free. What gets blamed as a Microsoft Windows problem, is ac­tually a problem of badly tuned hardware, and useless downloads and malware instal­lations from the Internet. Malware increases hardware failure, and in extreme cases your computer may stop working completely. Nivio has finally launching the Companion PC that could do away with many of these problems. The Nivio Companion is actu­ally a dumb box, it has no hard disk, no major processing power and not much RAM. Everything you need is stored on the Internet. This can work because we spend most of our computer time online anyway, whether it is using a browser, chat messenger, office applications or email. And the Internet today is always on. So, you can ac­cess your data, just like on a regular PC, using the Nivio Companion.

Since the desktop is online, you pay a monthly rental of Rs 249 plus your broadband charges. Nivio currently gives you 10 GB of online disk space, and you will need to rent out applications (example: MS Office will cost you an additional Rs 149 a month), that you want to use. You only pay for the application you use. And in the process get rid of piracy guilt. It con­sumes only 5 watts of energy; additional en­ergy of about 60 watts goes into feeding your LCD monitor (your PC eats 200 watts just for the CPU). The other advantage is, since you don’t need to install every application that is there (and there is a centrally installed antivi­rus), chances of your computer getting infect­ed are nearly zero. And, because all your files would be stored in a centrally managed data­base, you don’t need to keep a backup either. The Companion can also be purchased along with a 15 inch LCD monitor for a combo price of Rs 7,999. To run it, you require a minimum of 256 kbps broadband, but 512 kbps will be preferred. Finally, here’s something that can be put to use anywhere you need­ed a spare PC but were too scared: of the price to be paid for licences of the software and the effort to protect it against viruses and crashes. No wonder the Nivio won the Technology Pioneer Award at the Global Economic Forum in Davos this year.

More Details: http://bit.ly/open-nivio

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The above review appeared in the Open Magazine, Issue Dated 31 July 2009

Solving a Problem, Online

If a man fell off a plane from an altitude of 10,000 ft, how long will it take for him to hit earth? Well, this is no joke. It is actually a mathematical problem which will take some old fashioned brain slogging to solve.

I have always been in awe of mathematical equations and how using the relevant formula you can explain and solve any problem. However, I am not good at remembering anything but for basic equations from school.

So, the other day, while discussing the rate of evaporation of water for an Olympic size pool with an architect, both of us realised that we had no clue which formula to use, after all this wasn’t one of those problems we were faced with everyday.

Carrying a scientific calculator all the time is not really a practical option. I still do carry one, but not everyone can, and the old scientific ruler is not really available anymore. So how do you get to remember equations, and what happens when you are stuck with a problem.

My immediate thought was to Google the problem, or maybe checkout Wolfram Alpha, the search engine making all the waves. Then I decided to check if Casio—I love their scientific calculators—has put something online, may be a formula search.

And it had. Since June 1, the company has made available its Keisan portal—Keisan means calculation in Japanese—and it was online at www.keisan.casio.com.

The architect and me, both science students, were enamoured by the number of mathematical equations on the site. From the trivial ‘When is Easter for a particular year’ to the serious Bessel functions and probability calculations, they were all there.

The website is accurate up to 50 digit calculations, and users can select how many digits they want in the result. Another great feature is that you can paste both the calculation results and the chart into Excel and incorporate it in your report. So if you are a science student, or just enamoured by mathematical calculations, it is about time you checked out Keisan, 1,50,000 others do so every day.

That’s not all. In July alone, seven new calculations were added to the site, quite an achievement considering serious mathematics is no child’s play. With such interest being generated, Keisan should grow fast and become a useful tool for students and aspiring mathematicians.

By the way, it takes about the 70 seconds for the man to reach earth, Keisan says so.

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The above review appeared in the Indian Express, Dated 26th July 2009.

An iPod that Talks - Review iPod Shuffle

How can you make something that is simple, simpler? This is a question I ask everyone in my office every day, and it also seems to be the driving force of a company I love called Apple. When I saw the new iPod Shuffle video some months ago, I knew why Apple had become a cult brand.

I have been using a Creative Zen MP3 player with a large 3” screen, but have for some time wanted to shift to a iPod Shuffle or any other MP3 player with a simple interface, at least 4 GB storage capacity, playlist management features and song info, just in case a song led to an argument. Sound quality is very important to me and so the Chinese imports don’t really make sense, though I saw Shuffle lookalikes for as low as Rs 350.



Finally, I settled for the new iPod Shuffle. And I had my reasons—it looked great, was the smallest in size, had no buttons, and could actually talk to you.
So how do you manage an MP3 player with no buttons? Well, Apple has made this so simple that you know the song/artist and can go forward/back on your playlist even with your eyes shut, thanks to the controls inside the right earphone cable. The tiny control panel on the cable has small buttons to increase/decrease volume plus a central button to play/pause and forward/reverse. Press the button longer and it will tell you who the artist is, the name of the album and song. It also lets you browse through playlists using voice prompts in 14 languages, including English.




It has a single 3.5mm jack which is used as the port for plugging in the earphone as well as for data transfer and charging, using the small USB cable.

So, is it all good? There are two glitches that I noticed. One, Apple headphones with the remote are still not available separately in India—if you were to damage yours, you are in for trouble. Two, there are no two-way connectors available if you like to connect your MP3 player to your car stereo.

Anyway, if you like new technology, you are going to fall in love with this one and wonder why they did not think of this the first time.

Specs: 4GB storage
Colors: White & Black
Capacity: Upto 1,000 songs
Battery Charge Details: 10 Hour Backup / Fully Charges in 3 Hours
Price: Rs. 4200 + Taxes
More Details: http://www.apple.com/ipodshuffle/
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The above review was printed in The Indian Express, on Sunday May 10, 2009

Can Electric Vehicles be a Commercial Reality - Another Ted Talk

Whenever I have spoken about / written about Electric Vehicles, or anything Electric Powered, people have looked at me and wondered, why am I so crazy about alternative fuels, and why I have a strong belief that the world will run on Solar Powered Electricity in the future, that seems to be the only way to reduce our carbon footprint.

Anyway, while my usual browsing through TED, I came across the above talk by Shai Agassi, who has just recenlty setup a company called Better Place, and if you are thinking, or if you don't believe the world is changing, and we will now soon be running Electric Cars, you must see this presentation.

More Later, till I think, how can I send this to Mr. Ratan Tata ?

G

Netmagic Launches Cloud Computing

It is difficult when you have to write about a competitor, but then, hey the world needs information. Netmagic, one of the Leading Data Center Players (well actually currently the largest in India) announced the availability of their Cloud computing product line yesterday. This makes them the first to bring it to market, while we small players play with the technology and shape it, up, the product is out. For more details, check out the Netmagic Press Release by clicking here

The Sixth Sense - Wearable Computing

Indian news papers for the last 2 - 3 days have been full of the news on how Pranav Mistry is making waves with Sixth Sense. In case you have also read the news, or are interested in reading more, read on

Computers are a great asset, but they were not designed for out of the box interactivity. Over the last few years computers have become friendlier, even for a child, but you still need to learn how to use it, the interactivity is limited through the use of a keyboard and a mouse, and you need to know what these are. You just can't put a computer in the hand of a person who has never used it, and expected them to use it. This is the biggest challenge that all of us tech geeks must solve, there is a huge movement already there to solve this.

A few days back, in a post What if computers were as simple as blocks, I shared with you the work David Merill is doing, going forward Pranav Mistry's work is another break through.

Keeping in mind that these kids managed to what is very simple, but yet no one did it before, and all by spending just 350$ on the hardware, the cost of software and implementation is separate.

It has it's wow factor, so even if you are not interested in technology, and landed here, just while browsing this massive Internet, click on the video below and spend the next 5 minutes, seeing what is possible.



For those of you wondering, how this works.

Pranav has used a Web Camera to capture what he is seein'g, a Mirror Based Projector to project the images that you see, and 4 colored finger tips (also he is seen using nail paint) to identify where his fingers move. Think about it, Simple, yet wonderful. WOW

An Ode to KK

No, I am not talking about the singer or the actor—the story is about a visually challenged programmer from Bangalore, named Krishna Kant Mane, whom I met at the Freed.in conference, where I was speaking this year. He codes programs, builds software—he is writing an accounting software called GNUKhata—and is an active speaker, teacher and activist. KK’s talk at the conference led to a huge discussion on which screen reader software works best for visually impaired users.

There have been thousands of white papers on how accessibility is important in a PC. If you have ever noticed those two small notches on the keyboard under F and J and wondered there are for, well they may not have been put there for visually challenged people, but they do help them.

There are no computers with a Braille interface, but with advances in Speech Synthesiser technology, screen reading software and other features, it is becoming easier for visually impaired people to use a computer.

A software called Orca, which is included in the Linux distribution, is what makes all this possible. Orca is a free, open-source screen reader. Though it works on a Gnome Linux box, people are trying to get it to work on other platforms. To know more about Orca, go to: http://live.gnome.org/Orca.

To know if his computer has shut down, KK has to place his finger next to the air vent of his laptop to see if the fan has stopped spinning. He wishes the machine could say goodbye.

I know this is not one of my usual tech stories, but we all have to contribute in some way to help brighten up the lives of other individuals. Hope this article inspires some of us to think and build solutions for other challenged people, and to help someone use a computer better.

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The above story was published in the Indian Express, on Sunday, March 1, 2009
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Photo Courtsey: Jace - Flickr

What If - Computers Were as Simple as Blocks

The value of unlearning is very big. A concept introduced to me by a great friend of mine, and it has helped me progress, as my friend said, the importance is not to learn, but to unlearn. Our lives have become complicated with things around us, technology, cultures, television, media, all trying to teach us something, making it more and more complex. Any technology that makes life simpler, and easier, is something that I welcome with open Arms. This year at TED, David Merrill presented a Talk on Siftables (tiny blocks of computers, that interact with each other). Though in very early stages of development, but this talk will show you endless possibilities that you can think about.

David's presentation is just 7 minutes 9 seconds, and uses both videos, stills and talk to deliver a message, that makes you think. A Must Watch



Want More details, check out www.siftables.com.

PS: You can't buy them right now, I know, I also want them.

Google Takes a Giant Leap

For all of us, who love Gmail, the problem has been keeping it offline in the same format. My company, uses Zimbra for our corporate email and the Zimbra Desktop Client Still in Beta, makes this possible. Today Google's announcement on the Official Gmail Blog, made Google take a Giant Step with Gmail

So what have they done ?

The problem with all this online world is that you need to be connected, but you can't be, atleast it's not a reality as yet, so how do you access informaiton offline, store it offline, there have been discussions of POP/IMAP and various protocols, but they are just not as good.



Today Gmail Labs released a new feature that bridges the gap between desktop and web-based applications like never before: Offline Gmail. You can now access your Gmail from your browser any time, whether or not you're online.



Google Gears Offline makes it possible for you to download all your Gmail to your Desktop, every last gigabyte, and in offline mode, is much faster, amazingly fast.

Though still in Beta, and I haven't played with it as yet, as I dont' use Gmail as my first email address, but soon you will see an update from me.

We're making offline Gmail available to everyone who uses Gmail in US or UK English over the next couple of days, so if you don't see it under the Labs tab yet, it should be there soon. Once you see it, just follow these steps to get started:

1. Click Settings and click the Labs tab.
2. Select Enable next to Offline Gmail.
3. Click Save Changes.
4. After your browser reloads, you'll see a new "Offline0.1" link in the upper righthand corner of your account, next to your username. Click this link to start the offline set up process and download Gears if you don't already have it.

So, time to wait, and see when you get a chance to try it.

G

LG's Sky Charger at CES 2009

We all have to do a bit for the nature. This is something I would have loved to implement on our rooftop, but LG Beat me to it. Seen at the CES 2009, this is the LG Skycharger, It stores energy using the Wind and Sun into batteries, that in turn helped the visitors charge their mobile phones and cameras, laptops.

Brilliant, I must say.

G

Time for Teamwork - On the Lean

Three solutions to share knowledge, virtually
THE corporate world has a lot of knowledge, but hardly any knowledge centres, and hence all this knowledge seems to be residing among individuals instead of organisations. This week I will show you some solutions that will let you share knowledge, interact, collaborate and work with distributed teams on common goals, all this without spending much money.

We will always be able to email presentations, documents and spreadsheets to colleagues and clients, but we will always end up asking for more. This is where tools like Zoho office (www.zoho.com) and Google docs (docs.google.com) come in. Both are effective when it comes to working with teams, but they still fall short of our requirements.

Both are great to share Word documents and to work on them together, but are unable to do the same while sharing an Excel sheet or making a guided presentation to multiple people. In my search for a solution to this problem, I came across three websites.

If you want to share a spreadsheet or work on graphs without having to install anything on your PC, then head for editgrid.com, open a free account, look at some standard templates and spreadsheets others have made, and start. You can send an invite to multiple people who can log on to slide-share and work with you live or otherwise on the same spreadsheet. You can do this from any PC, and so there is no need to carry all those files with you. The website has a paid version for enterprises that look at data security and support.

If you are familiar with modern day organisations, you would have come across a term called Webex (now a Cisco company). Webex allows you to share any application, do presentations remotely and work together as a team, but at a price of 33 cents per minute— sadly, meetings end up costing quite a packet. Now you have an option. Dimdim.com offers the same features for free. Though their $99 per year version offers higher speeds, it also has a free version which is sufficient if you audience is small—about 10 to 15 people—and you want to limit interactions to text or voice chat. You can also do video conferencing, though this feature is not very stable as of now.

We all need to send screenshots, whether it is for support on an application or getting advice, and the Print Screen button on your keyboard can’t always do the trick. Jingproject.com from Techsmith, the leaders in professional screen capture solutions, allows you to take screenshots—pictures or video—and annotate them using text, arrows, lines, boxes and highlights in multiple colours, all for free.
So go ahead, share that knowledge.

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The above article appeared in the Indian Express on Sunday, 21st December 2008

Asus Eee PC v/s HP HP 2133 Mini-Note - Tech 2

This week in My Indian Express Article, I reviewed the HP 2133 Mini Note.

To read the review, click here, or buy the Indian Express, on Sunday, April 13, 2008, Across India.

I know some of you would like to know feature to feature comparison, so here it is

Spec	HP Mini Note	Asus Eee PC
Processor	VIA 1.0~1.6GHz	Intel UMA
Scree	8.9"	7"
RAM	512 ~ 2048MB	512 ~ 1024MB
Graphics	WXGA 1280x800	SVGA 800 x 600 - Unknown
Stroage	4GB SSD ~ 120GBHDD	4GB ~ 8GB SSD
Battery	2.5 Hours	3 Hours
Webcam	VGA	VGA
Bluetooth	Select Models	NO
Weight	2.63 lbs	2.02 lbgs

Wifi + Solar Power - Great Use - Tracking Turtles

A few months back a program on the National Geographic Channel about the Red Panda's going missing, and scientists still using radio tags to catch them, put me into thinking, on why they were stil not using Wi-Fi technology. Well, my answer was not far off, today's posting on Tree Hugger, about MIT Scientists (who else), putting solar powered wi-fi devices on the back of turtles, to track there whereabouts, and also to study the behaviour of a diminishing population, had me sit up and read.

A very interesting reading, click here, to read the full article.

GS