Good Monday Morning
It’s January 30th. Microsoft reported lower quarterly income and only slightly higher revenue last week, a decidedly mixed bag for Wall Street. Facebook is up on Wednesday afternoon followed by Amazon, Google, and Apple on Thursday.
Today’s Spotlight is 903 words — about 4 minutes to read.
Spotlight On … 2023 Health Technology
Personalized medicine is being driven by advances in 2023 health technology, such as miniature medical devices and machine learning algorithms.
We’ll see more medical care delivered at home and at work with wearables and portable devices, beyond the already exciting advances in heart rate monitoring and fall detection.
Home Urinalysis & Defibrillators
Starling and Withings are about to release devices to help physicians monitor patients with diabetes, kidney disease, or urinary tract infections. TechCrunch reported that Starling’s CEO estimates the annual market for urinalysis is $4.9 billion, and that doesn’t include lost patient time for driving to facilities. In a lifetime, 50-60% of women will suffer a UTI, with 0.5 UTIs per person per year.
French company Lifeaz has created a $1,000 defibrillator device intended for home use. The unit provides vocal instructions, increasing the likelihood that medical help will be provided quickly and effectively. According to the American Heart Association, the average survival rate for sudden cardiac arrest victims in the United States is only 7%. NIH says that more units can save thousands of lives each year.
Prime Telehealth
Amazon’s retailing expertise will disrupt local pharmacies and clinics in 2023. Health care has long been an Amazon focus. One estimate suggests that Amazon’s health care segment could create $9.66 billion in revenue by 2027.
A new Amazon Clinic service launched two months ago in 32 states. This gives Amazon access to a wide range of customers, who can now access health care services without having to leave their homes. Physicians working for Amazon will treat 20 everyday medical issues remotely, including birth control, GERD, motion sickness, allergies, and UTIs.
Another new Amazon service, RxPass, offers Prime members discounts on generic medications. Pricing for the generic versions of well known medications is $5 per month and no shipping fee plus the cost of generics that often range from only a couple of dollars to $15 or $20.
Your Phone Becomes A Tool
Future advances in 2023 health technology include using a smartphone to guide ultrasounds with a gel dispenser hidden inside a smartphone attachment. ECG algorithms are being tested at the Mayo Clinic for widespread atrial fibrillation screening. Mayo is also improving detection models for abnormalities that can be detected by machines during eye exams and ultrasounds.
3 More Stories to Know
1) The Justice Department and eight states filed a lawsuit alleging that Google is abusing its position as a monopoly in the advertising technology industry. The suit seeks that Google divest itself of some ad tracking technologies. The U.S. government has sued Google over its business practices five times in three years.
2) LastPass has acknowledged that hackers now possess encrypted backups of customer login credentials. The company has had a number of past issues including a hacking incident in 2015 and vulnerabilities discovered in 2016, 2017, and 2019. A few weeks ago, we wrote extensively about the troubled service.
3) The developers of an AI-powered traffic court adviser shut down a test after multiple state bar officials threatened legal sanctions. DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder planned to have the service used in a California traffic court, but was threatened with possible prosecution for various misdemeanors including unauthorized practice of law.
Trends & Spends
Did That Really Happen? — Wyoming Will Not Ban Electric Vehicles (But Tried)
State legislators sometimes propose wacky laws. That happened when a group of Wyoming legislators introduced a bill this month to ban the sale of electric vehicles starting in 2035. The bill failed and is not law.
Following Up — Madison Square Garden Doubles Down on Facial Recognition
We told you last week about abuses in facial recognition. One petty case included MSG-owned Radio City Music Hall identifying a mother accompanying a Girl Scout field trip who also works at a law firm suing the company. The mother was blocked from attending the show, eliciting threats of another suit and a pledge by state officials to investigate the company’s liquor license.
Now MSG’s mercurial owner James Dolan is threatening to voluntarily ban beer sales and refer angry patrons to the state official’s contact info.
Protip — Stop Those Formatting Issues!
If you write on an electronic device, you must read every word of “Tab Is Not Indent...”
Screening Room — Panera’s Dough Nations <3
Science Fiction World — Robot Liquifies and (Yes, Like Terminator…)
It’s called Magnetoactive liquid-solid phase transitional matter.
Go ahead and call it T-2. It’s so cool.
Coffee Break — Wonders of Street View
Creative coder Neal Agarwal is back with another brilliant project. He may hold the record for the most Coffee Break features ever. This time you can visit random Wonders of Street View, that amazing Google Maps feature.
Sign of the Times
