Apple hires medical techies, raises spectre of iStuff slurping data direct from your bloodstream Apple has hired two new faces from the medical tech world as it steps up its drive to develop wearable iThings. The fruity firm poached Nancy Dougherty from startup Sano Intelligence, which is developing a patch sensor which can painlessly monitor the chemical makeup of a patient's bloodstream. This would be useful for …
Apple should randomly hire 1 or 2 people from weird industries just to mess with Google and M$ and Samsung.
next month hire someone from boeing and Quantas, so they will all think its to do with Airlines and then rush to spend/waste money on the next 'device' that dumb ANALysts predict.
Then in few months hire 2 from budwieser or Guinness.
Fun fun fun
Theoretically its not a bad idea.
Wristwatches maintain skin contact (depending on how tight the stap is and avoiding people like Derren Brown) they are next to a good pulse point, and good bloodflow (as long as your arm is attatched).
Having heart rate, Blood Pressure, blood sugar levels etc available on your watch (along with the time), certainly beats trying to stream a move to a 1" screen, trying to look cool and hip ( a la Dick Tracy) whist shouting at your hand, or trying to use that bloody calculator function that needs a "your fingers are too fat" stylus, but even then you won't be able to read the result. (yes I had one of the latter... a LONG time ago)
I have taken pride in never having purchased an Apple product as I prefer more open, unrestricted (and less rip-off) alternatives.
However if Apple manage to deliver a reliable product that can monitor blood glucose in a painless, unobtrusive way then they have a new convert. I would immediately buy one for my Type 1 diabetic daughter.
Seeing as the amount of diabetics in the world seems to be on an ever increasing upward trend, this could be a lucrative market for them.
Whilst Google's new acquisition of smart contact lenses sounds interesting, a patch would be preferable.
>I would very much prefer such a device to have NO connectivity at all.
What, not even USB connectivity so that you can look at graphs of glucose over time?
Fear about 3rd parties having your data are reasonable. Fears about 3rd parties obtaining your data through dodgy security implementation are reasonable. A point-blank dismissal of individuals collecting their own data, to be shared with whmo they choose (and so perhaps saving a district nurse from travelling to the thrice weekly)... a bit daft.
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