This DIY smart mirror is small, stunning and full of features

Several years ago Google X engineer Max Braun published a medium post on a smart mirror he made and now he’s back with a new version that’s smaller and smarter. This is a smart mirror I can get behind though I still find smart mirrors completely frivolous.

He published his project on Medium where he explains the process and the parts a person would need to build their own. This isn’t a project for everyone, but Max gives enough instructions that most enterprising builders should be able to hack something similar together.

I recently reviewed a smart mirror and found it a bit silly but still useful. Ideally, like in Max’s smart mirrors, the software is passive and always available. Users shouldn’t have to think about interacting with the devices; the right information should be displayed automatically. It’s a balancing act.

At this point, smart mirrors are little more than Android tablets placed behind a two-way mirror. Retail models are expensive to be buy and hardly worth it since a person’s phone or voice assistant can probably provide the same information. After all, how many devices does a person really need to tell them the weather forecast?

from Android – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2Hj3F5H
via IFTTT

Apple’s AR bet still has a lot to prove

As Apple gears up for its developer keynote conference tomorrow, one of its bigger announcements is likely to be new changes coming to its augmented reality platform. Since announcing ARKit last year, the tech giant has hardly been sheepish about its belief in AR’s potential.

• “I think AR is big and profound,” Apple CEO Tim Cook told CNBC.
• “I don’t think there is any sector or industry that will be untouched by AR,” he told Vogue.
• “I think AR is that big, it’s huge. I get excited because of the things that could be done that could improve a lot of lives,” he told The Independent.

Behind a lot of that talk is belief in the tech’s utility down the road, but until Apple is ready to experimenting with AR tech in core iOS features, all of the chatter around AR having plenty of utility today feels a bit half-hearted. I’ll be very interested to see if the company announces any AR integrations in iOS 12 tomorrow that add new utility or if Animojis are still about as far as they’re willing to go.

While nearly every major tech company spent 2017 opining about the potential of AR, there still doesn’t seem to be much that consumers can show for it. Google made a few interesting announcements surrounding the technology at its I/O conference last month, most fascinating was an AR walking mode being tested for Google Maps. Apple Maps is in desperate need of an upgrade and it makes sense for that to be the starting point for where its integrations begin.

AR is definitely one of Apple’s longer term investments, but it’s also one that may not see much payoff in the short term.

While Apple has been content to let many of their long-term bets iterate through awkward phases underground in the R&D labs, ARKit has been thrust onto hundreds of millions of devices while still in that odd, what-are-we-supposed-to-do-with-this stage. AR is more broadly one of those unique scenarios where everyone can imagine a potential end-case, it’s how it gets there that’s the head-scratcher and Apple seems to need developers to take on the risk of experimenting.

At Apple’s developer conference keynote tomorrow, the company seems poised to showcase new developments for its ARKit augmented reality platform. Chief on the list of expected upgrades (via Reuters) is a system of sharing coordinated point clouds between phones so that multiple users can run AR apps in a shared experience, aka AR multiplayer.

Where Apple will definitely highlight ARKit’s potential is in the gaming sector. Gaming has always been more-engaging with multi-player, but how that really looks with augmented reality is anyone’s guess. It’s been two years since Pokémon GO was released and for all of the attention that title received, it isn’t entirely clear how AR capabilities contributed to its success.

Games that integrate a multiplayer ARKit are going to have to make a lot of discoveries on their own. Playing games with friends in AR will gain a hyper-local edge but will lose much of the freedom offered by online gameplay in terms of connecting gamers seamlessly. There are countless other UX questions that will also still need to be experimented with.

Augmented reality is a truly exciting technology and Apple’s efforts to lead the pack in building developer support has built up a lot of initial enthusiasm from that crowd, but to keep that excitement Apple’s going to need to start proving out some of those use cases for users on their own and put its big bet deeper into users’ daily digital lives.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2xFr5Td

VCs like what they are hearing out of the podcasting sector

Looks like macOS 10.14 will have a new dark mode and an Apple News app

Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference is just a couple of days away, but some of the updates appear to have been revealed early.

Specifically, developer Steve Troughton-Smith tweeted some screenshots this morning of what he said was macOS 10.14. And while the screenshots focused on Xcode 10, they also revealed a couple of bigger changes to the operating system.

For one thing, it looks like the new version of macOS will include a more comprehensive dark mode — one that doesn’t just darken the menu bar and the dock, but applies much more broadly, affecting apps and even the Trash can. The screenshots also include an icon for Apple News in the dock, so there’s probably a new desktop version of the app on the way.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Xcode 10 on macOS 10.14. Dark Appearance, Apple News, App Store w/ video previews pic.twitter.com/rJlDy81W4W

— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) June 2, 2018

How did Troughton-Smith get ahold of these screenshots? He said Apple posted a preview video for Xcode to the Mac App Store API — a video he then shared with 9to5Mac. So it seems the Mac App Store will start include preview videos like this one (the iOS App Store already does).

Ahead of WWDC, there have been rumors that Apple will launch “universal” apps that work on both desktop and mobile. Nothing here confirms that, but it does suggest Apple is working to make iOS and macOS — and their respective App Stores — more similar.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2xBgd97

Patient reporting tool from CancerAid now integrates with Epic Systems and Apple HealthKit

CancerAid, a self-reporting and symptom monitoring tool for cancer patients, has scored its first major coup in the U.S. healthcare market with its integration into Epic Systems electronic health records at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles and an integration with Apple’s HealthKit.

Cedars, an investor in the company through an accelerator program it ran in conjunction with Techstars, marks the first U.S. hospital system to incorporate CancerAid’s self-reporting information into a dashboard system for doctors.

It’s been a long road for company co-founders Raghav Murali-Ganesh and Nikhil Pooviah, who first met eight years ago at the Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, a Sydney, Australia cancer treatment center.

Pooviah was a resident working with Murali-Ganesh in radiation oncology, positions the two men occupied for several years before venturing off on their own to launch the service that would become CancerAid.

The company’s initial inspiration came from years spent checking out the tools that were already in the market for cancer patients — tools like Chemo Calendar that helped with things like scheduling and monitoring appointments.

Instead of studying for some particularly tricky upcoming exams, Pooviah was spending time developing a patient-facing self-reporting symptom tracker and a community portal for cancer patients to discuss, share and monitor their own symptoms.

CancerAid co-founders Drs. Nikhil Pooviah and Raghav Murali-Ganesh and Martin Seneviratne

It was that first tool that won the company acceptance into the Cedars Sinai accelerator and a competitive position in TechCrunch’s inaugural Startup Battlefield competition in Sydney, Australia.

From its initial development, CancerAid now has four primary functions. On the patient side, there’s personalized cancer information for patients after their initial diagnosis. The company also provides a personal journal and symptom journal for patients to report on how they’re feeling, both emotionally and physically, as they progress through their treatment.

A feature the company calls “Champions” was added so that family and friends could keep up with patients and encourage them. And finally, the company added a social networking feature so patients could connect with a broader community of patients and survivors.

Now, the company has added “ClinicianLink,” a clinician-facing dashboard that sits in Epic and integrates with the existing workflows of nurses, oncologists, radiologists and the rest of the hospital administration and operational staff that touches patients as they undergo treatment.

The company expects to lock in six-figure licensing deals for hospital systems to access the entire toolkit and offer it to patients.

For hospitals, there’s some research that suggests simply by reporting their symptoms patients can improve their own outcomes, because doctors have a better sense on more regular intervals of the potential problems their patients face, the company said.

“Patients will be able to use the patient-facing app at home, with a feedback loop back to their care team (physicians, nurses) in the hospital in real-time,” wrote Pooviah in an email. “This feedback loop helps reduce [emergency room] visits and 30 day readmissions (saving $19,000 per patient per year).”

Beyond the Epic integration, CancerAid is also integrating with HealthKit — so that Apple wearables will be able to have the CancerAid functionality, the company said.

The company has 20,000 patients on the app already, and is being used in 80 of the 200 largest U.S. health systems, according to Pooviah.

Backed by $1.9 million in funding from strategic and financial investors, including Cedars-Sinai Health System, Techstars, Australia’s Shark Tank, Slingshot Ventures and Artesian Capital, the company is looking to expand in the U.S. through a dedicated subsidiary as it concentrates on one of the world’s largest healthcare markets.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2LKXWsO

Apple Pay tests ‘order ahead’ for drinks at music festivals

Apple is fixing one of the worst parts of the concert experience: waiting in line for a beer while you miss your favorite song. Last week’s BottleRock music festival near San Francisco was the first to try a new ‘order ahead with Apple Pay’ feature that Apple hopes to bring to more events. You just open the festival’s app, select the closest concession stand, choose your drinks, Apple Pay with your face or fingerprint, and pick up the beverages at a dedicated window with no queue.

Check out our demo video below.

BottleRock’s upscale wine & oldies music fest, 100 miles from the tech giant’s headquarters, has become a testbed for Apple Pay. Last year, every concession stand got equipped with the Square’s Apple Pay-ready point of sale system and special fast lanes for customers who used it instead of cash or credit card. 30% of all transactions at BottleRock were made with Apple Pay, according to an Apple spokesperson, proving people wanted a faster way to get back to the show.

With order ahead, your drinks are ready for pick up so you don’t even have to break your dance stride. Having gone to 14 Coachellas, I’d learned to forego booze rather than risk losing my friends or a chance to hear that hit single while stewing in the beer garden lines. But Apple Pay powered the best concert commerce experience I’ve had yet. I’m sure I’m not the only one who knocked back a few more drinks last weekend because it was so convenient.

That’s why I foresee music festivals jumping at the chance to integrate order ahead with Apple Pay into their apps. They and their vendors will see more sales, while attendees see more music. Meanwhile, it’s a smart way for Apple to reach a juicy demographic. Apple Pay is especially helpful when you’re in a rush, but festival goers will return home more likely to use it day-to-day.

Often times, music festival tech like friend finding apps and location-based alerts can interrupt the moment. Apple Pay succeeds here by fading away, keeping you in harmony with the present.

from Apple – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2J91AuI

Apple to launch its own ‘digital health’ features in iOS 12, says report

At Google I/O in May, the company introduced a series of time management tools for Android users that help better manage screen time, track app usage, and limit the phone’s ability to distract, including a “shush” mode which turns on Do Not Disturb by flipping the phone over, and a “wind down,” color reduction mode for bedtime. Now, it seems Apple will follow suit with its own digital wellbeing features in an upcoming release of the iOS mobile operating system, a new report claims.

According to Bloomberg, Apple will introduce a new set of digital wellbeing features for iOS users at its Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in San Jose on Monday.

The tools will be later released as a part of iOS 12 operating system for iPhone and iPad devices, which typically arrives in the fall.

The report was light on details in terms of which specific metrics Apple will track, but says those details will arrive in a new menu inside the Settings app in iOS 12.

The initiative, called “Digital Health,” will monitor how much time users spend on devices, but it’s unclear if it will also include tools that help users silence their phones using new gestures or settings, or otherwise disengage from their devices.

The digital wellbeing movement is part of a fairly recent course correction for Silicon Valley tech companies, which are now being held accountable for the addictive nature of the devices, apps and services they’ve created.

 

From the beginning, tech company engineers and designers were encouraged to make their products ever more engaging by taking advantage of specific design patterns that prompt regular, addictive usage of their products, and those that increase users’ time spent in apps.

But more recently, some tech execs have come to espouse regrets for what they’ve built. Former Facebook president Sean Parker stated Facebook’s design exploited weakness in the human psyche to addict users, and said he worried about what it was doing to kids’ brains. Meanwhile, former Google exec Tristan Harris launched a coalition of technologists and activists called the Center for Humane Technology, which aims to encourage “humane design” – that is, design that reduces distractions and stress, and keeps people from being hooked on their devices.

Now the industry giants are putting some of these principles into practice.

Facebook earlier this year changed how its News Feed operates to reduce users’ time spent on the site in favor of well-being. Instagram last month introduced its first time well spent feature, by informing users “you’re all caught up” when they’ve viewed all the new posts. Google launched parental control tools in its Family Link service that allow parents to limit kids’ screen time, and introduced the above-mentioned digital wellness features for Android in May.

If Apple were to avoid the topic, it would be the odd one out at this point.

The new digital wellbeing tools will likely be detailed during Monday’s WWDC keynote address, and may include some additional protections for children through an update to iOS’s parental controls. We do know that more robust parental controls are at least coming, as Apple promised this explicitly following criticism from major shareholders about children’s iPhone addiction.

image credit: child on device, Shestock / Getty Images

from Apple – TechCrunch https://ift.tt/2HcGAkV