IBM, Pfizer Teaming Up to Test IoT for Treating Parkinson’s Disease
In an effort to improve the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, which requires doctors to continually evaluate the efficacy and dosage of the drugs they administer, IBM is teaming up with drug company Pfizer for an experiment leveraging Internet of Things technology. The two companies say they are starting to test wearable sensors and setting up scenarios in which the devices could be used to collect data regarding patients’ day-to-day activities.
The goal is to design sensors and data-collection systems that could amass a baseline of data regarding patients’ daily activity, and then to use machine learning to identify changes in behavior and health. In particular, the companies want to be able to passively measure factors such as motor function, dyskinesia (a type of movement disorder), cognition, sleep and daily grooming activities.
The effort is still at a very early stage. TechCrunch reports that if the companies are able to create “an ideal sensor pack that’s cost-effective and easy to set up and maintain in a large number of houses,” Pfizer may then launch a clinical trial to test the efficacy of this type of disease monitoring. According to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, approximately 60,000 Americans are diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease each year.
BKON Offering Physical Web Development Kit
Last summer, Google announced Eddystone, an open-source Bluetooth beacon platform that enables a beacon to transmit a URL via Bluetooth that causes information related to that URL to appear in the receiving smartphone’s Web browser. This direct-to-URL approach to interacting with connected devices is referred to as The Physical Web.
Apple‘s iBeacon platform does not offer this feature. Instead, a beacon that uses the platform transmits a unique ID and generally requires that a dedicated app (created for that deployment) be running on a smartphone in order to receive information related to the beacon ID. The advantage of employing a dedicated beacon-enabled app, however, is that a marketer can you use it to deliver customized messaging and deals tailored that each specific smartphone user, instead of getting generic information delivered from a URL using the Physical Web approach.
Beacon manufacturer BKON has introduced a software development kit (SDK) that bridges the two approaches. Designed to help marketers easily deploy a Physical Web experience for their customers via their customer-facing app, the SDK is built on PHY.net, BKON’s end-to-end Physical Web platform, and can be deployed on any Eddystone-URL-formatted beacon. Using the SDK, marketers can assign beacons a public URL for consumers who use Physical Web browsers such as Chrome, and also a private URL for consumers who use the marketer’s app. Marketers, restaurants and retailers can manage these private URLs through the PHY.net platform via a dashboard, schedule or application programming interface (API).
HID Global Launches New Mobile Identity Products
HID Global, which makes identity cards and access-control systems, has announced, at the Security Industry Association trade show in Las Vegas, a new technology offering that HID says will enable government agencies to issue driver’s licenses and other identification cards digitally, via citizen’s smartphones. The HID goID platform for mobile IDs is designed to turn smartphones into both secure credentials and ID readers, which security personnel could use to verify the authenticity of digital credentials. The platform is built on HID’s Seos digital authentication platform, which has already been deployed by its parent company, ASSA ABLOY, to enable smartphone-based keyless access-control systems for guests at Starwood hotel properties.
HID also announced that it is partnering with chipmaker NXP Semiconductors to integrate HID’s keyless access-control technology into NXP’s SmartMX-based secure element devices built into wearable products, such as smart watches.
GCell Announces Solar-Powered Indoor Beacon
GCell, a manufacturer of solar-powered mobile devices and energy storage systems, has introduced a solar-powered Bluetooth beacon designed for indoor use. The beacon harvests energy from indoor ambient light sources to charge its onboard battery. The battery has an expected lifecycle of roughly eight years when the beacon is set to transmit its signal once every 100 milliseconds. The beacon has a read range of between 3 and 25 meters (9.8 and 82 feet), according to GCell. The beacon is expeced to be made available later this year. Pricing information has not yet been released.
Survey Uncovers Reticence About Using IoT
U.K.-based member-based trade group Mobile Ecosystem Forum (MEF) and computer security services company AVG, have released the results of a survey that sought to analyze the impact of trust on the Internet of Things. The survey, conducted by On Device Research, a mobile market research company, polled more than 5,000 consumers in the United Kingdom, the United States, Brazil, France, Germany, China, India and South Africa.
In line with many other, similar recent surveys, privacy and data security ranked as the top two concerns with regard to IoT products and services. Globally, 62 percent of respondents said privacy was their chief concern about IoT technology, with privacy ranking as the second among 54 percent. But when segmenting respondents based on nationality, American and French consumers were the most likely to name privacy a concern (70 percent and 69 percent, respectively). Among women, 70 percent named privacy their top concern, whereas only 57 of male respondents did.
Among Chinese consumers who use mobile technology, 42 percent said that the use of IoT technology made them concerned for their physical well-being, while only 14 percent of German consumers expressed the same concern. When asked whether privacy concerns prevented them from doing more with their mobile phone, 73 percent of those who responded in the affirmative said that they were also wary about using IoT technology. MEF is sharing the survey results with its members to help them better understand the end-user mindset.
Retail Trade Groups Promoting ZigBee Alliance
The The ZigBee Alliance, an industry organization that sets communication and interoperability standards for IEEE 802.15.4-compliant wireless sensor networks, has signed a liaison agreement with the Global Market Development Center (GMDC), a general merchandise, health, beauty and wellness retail trade association with more than 600 members worldwide.
Based on the terms of the agreement, the GMDC will recommend the Alliance’s ZigBee 3.0 standard to member companies. The ZigBee Alliance is promoting the use of ZigBee-based technology, such as electronic shelf labels, intelligent shopping carts and temperature sensor networks for food safety and tracking in retail settings. It also promotes the use of ZigBee-based sensors to track assets throughout the retail supply chain.