Hello everyone! The world of corporate innovation changes quickly. Our “What’s New” blog series keeps you up to date with all the latest news and views of interest in the space. We hope you enjoy this next instalment.
‘Smart Thermometres’ Track Flu Season in Real Time
This winter has seen – and many of us have experienced – a particularly nasty strain of the flu’ virus sweeping across the globe. New “smart thermometers” may be able to help. kinsahealth.com, a new app-based technology, is able to gather enormous amounts of data in real-time, delivering far more accurate results than even the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, until now the US benchmark for health management data.
Kinsahealth is the brainchild of Dr Inder Signh. Its smartphone-connected oral and ear thermometers are now registered on the mobile devices of 500,000 households which feed data back to its website for analysis. The app can register circa 25000 readings a day, enabling it to (almost) instantly identify ‘fever spikes’ in various locations (even pin pointing them down to specific neighbourhoods) so that control procedures can be swiftly activated and the spread of the virus reduced.
Imaginatik’s take: The rise of mobile-connected big data is kicking into hyperdrive. Important applications are coming online that may change society in areas ranging from healthcare, to transportation, to finance, and beyond. In this case, a direct-monitoring startup is besting the CDC at its own game. Everyone from health insurance to hospitals should take note – and that’s just in the healthcare space. Consider borrowing from the playbook of organizations like Boston Children’s Hospital, which has made important breakthroughs in digital health through its own Innovation Accelerator.
Microsoft Patents ‘Mind Control’ For Apps
The power to control the physical world with your mind would seem to echo the plot of the latest, futuristic Spielberg movie. But maybe not; in a world where we are on the verge of seeing the autonomous car, pilotless planes, robotic home-help, and other operator-free machinery, new innovations are potentially offering us ‘neurologically driven apps’ that will allow us to perform a number of digital actions using only our thoughts.
The application could be applied to just about anything from simple web browsing to the operation of augmented reality simulators. It might even be used in the operation of all manner of equipment, such as tools and even planes, trains, and automobiles.
This technology also opens-up a whole new world to the physically disabled. In theory, enabling a wheelchair bound pilot to fly a spaceship using only their thought processes.
Imaginatik’s take: Amidst all the gloom-and-doom prophesies of “the machines taking over” there are occasional reminders of what the more realistic future of AI looks like: helping humans accomplish our goals faster, easier, better. Companies already grappling with the implications of IoT might want to add another lens to the long-term innovation strategy. Perhaps we’re headed for a world where it’s not only possible for appliances and equipment to share data and coordinate actions, but also where humans can “chat” directly with the machines via our thoughts.
The Grocery Store Where You NEVER Have To Wait In Line
Amazon has created an AI powered shopping experience with a view to rendering the use of checkouts – and more importantly the queues associated with them – obsolete. Running through the Amazon Go app on the shoppers’ smart phone, items are tracked using AI powered cameras and weight sensors. This means that shoppers can browse and then pick up the items that they want, have the sensors register their ‘shopping carts,’ and leave without the hassle of a physical checkout. All purchased items are logged onto their Amazon account and they are charged for the goods accordingly. A far more efficient use of time for the modern day on-the-go shopper.
Imaginatik’s take: With last year’s buyout of Whole Foods, perhaps we all should have seen this coming. Amazon is sprinting forward in its efforts to bring digital efficiency, and a digitally-improved customer experience, to yet another corner of retail. The pundit circuit has already beaten into the ground a wide range of innovation “lessons” to be gleaned from Amazon’s successes. So we’ll just say this: if your company doesn’t already obsess about making your own business and/or operations business model obsolete, now is the time to start.
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