There's Low Power GPS in the Air

Anyone who has owned a mobile phone with built in GPS (e.g. Blackberry Curve, Nokia N95) will welcome the work of Air Semiconductors who have created a GPS solution which drains as little as 1% of the power of previous solutions. The prodigious battery munching capabilities of the GPS on N95 led this particular user to be something of an electricity junky.

Air Semiconductor, who are backed by Pond Venture Partners (they know a thing or two about semiconductors- the team include some of the brains behind ARM), also explain how their Airwave-1 chip eliminates time-to-first-fix and hence provides an instantaneous location. The combination of these two innovations means that not only mobile phones, but digital cameras, will be able to geotag images seamlessly... and enable a whole raft of other applications.

As the owner of 3 Nokia N95 chargers (kept in multiple locations in my life "just in case"), I'm really looking forward to this technology arriving in the consumer marketplace.

Complex Event Processing in Healthcare

It is interesting how new ideas and technologies rise to meet the needs of one industry and then diffuse into other industries. Classic examples are the trickledown from aerospace into the motor industry, and the application of diagnostic imaging technology into airport security.

I've recently spotted the early stages of a technology which has risen in the investment banking sector now starting to find its feet in healthcare. The technology is known as complex event processing (CEP).

As recorded on Wikipedia, a complex event is "what one infers from simple events" and gives the example of a lady in a white dress, a man in a tuxedo and lots of rice flying through the air being a wedding. In banking, CEP is used to take on board very simple events (e.g. sell prices) and infer from them something richer (e.g. market trends) from which a decision can be made (e.g. go short on a specific portfolio stocks). A search on Google of "complex event processing healthcare" returns a relatively modest 193,000 results. I can see this exploding and look forward to checking in with Google Trends in due course to see the references rolling in.

One area of health care where I think this will hold great value is in post-operative recovery monitoring of vital signs. The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland recommends that during anaeasthesia and recovery a variety of monitors should supplement clinical observation. The challenge is that once outside of theatre the available clinical resources are limited and can only observe on a sampled basis. Also, the analysis of the monitor readings is trying to spot early onset of a complex range of problems such as hypoxemia, hypoventilation, hypotension, hypertension, hyperthermia, hypothermia and dysrhythmias.

In the event of deteriation, rapid response is a critical success factor in intervention. Different jurisdictions recommend different frequencies of monitoring (research for this article found a range from 5 mins to 30 mins for most vital signs) so you can't help but feel this is driven by the limiting factor of resources rather than clinical need. In fact, muscle relaxants (one possible intervention) are often chosen on the basis of an onset speed which is measured in minutes, not tens of minutes. CEP could be applied to spot problems on a real time basis, moving the limiting factor onto being the monitors' sample rates rather than the care pathway. I'd be very interested in talking to anyone who's working in applications in this area.

Like many other technologies in healthcare, no doubt we will see the rise of this technology met by the acronym being misinterpreted as clinical event processing. Look out for that!

Unanswered Nokia N96 Questions

So, after Nokia's announcement about their new N96 being available soon, and the release of some spec information, the questions are starting to be asked that really matter. Most of these are from users of the Nokia N95, for which the N96 is the logical successor.

The official specs don't show whether the fantastic features which the N95 has will have a more punchy processor to chew through them on the N96; whether this processor and battery combo will extend the life of the phone between charges; or whether the slow initial connection to GPS will be resolved.

There's some speculation about the processor. Survivor82 seems to think (from a 'reliable source') that the TI processor of the N95 will be replaced by another ARM designed processor from STmicroelectronics. Aside from the clock speed between the ARM1136 at 330MHz (TI) and the ARM926EJ at 393MHz (ST), we need to wait and see on whether this is an improvement in real terms.

Today's Award for Stating the Bleedin' Obvious....

...goes to Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec, who said:

"Five billion pounds represents a substantial sum."

I can see why he holds down that job, with such a tight grasp of quantitative analysis :) Actually, to be fair to Mr Shaw, I'm sure the quote was plucked from a longer answer to a hardcore question around the turmoil in today's financial markets (this sentence is the one to protect me from a defamation suit- can you tell?).

CreativeCraving brings Cafepress-like service to UK

Way back in July 2006 I suggested that someone should set up a business like Cafepress but with a UK based operation- rather than from west coast US. This was partly out of guilt from buying a $5 mug from Cafepress and then paying nearly the same to post it back to the UK from San Fran. I still felt the price was reasonable, but just imagine the carbon footprint!

Anyway, someone from Creative Craving has contacted me... it's been done. And done well. I would normally feel envious that I'd spotted an opportunity and someone else has exploited it before me, but I sincerely don't begrudge the great job they've done. I hope to be a customer soon and see if the experience lives up to the anticipation.

Apple Join New-Year dieting fad with MacBook Air

OK, so who saw the MacBook Air coming? Any mention at Consumer Electronics Show? No. The next expected step from Apple to be announced in the Steve Jobs keynote at Macworld 2008 was variously touted, but was broadly along the lines of exploiting the market position gained by the iPod Nano, iPhone and Apple TV. BUT NO. How's this for breaking the rule book... an ultrathin laptop! Or THE ultrathin laptop? Given the number of suppliers needing to cooperate around the launch of a innovative laptop, it is amazing that it was kept so well under wraps. The closest whiff we all had was the speculation around the FlashMac- technology which we see here in the solid state drive.

Actually, perhaps all that just shows how far my finger has strayed away from the pulse?

It is not yet known when true devotees will be able to dig deep into their pockets in the UK, but there are surely many waiting for the excuse. The common theme to all of Apple's product launches recently has surely been their ability to exceed expectations... and with each launch those expectations get higher.

Actually, despite this post following the attention grabbing headline announcement, I think the most impactful thing mentioned by St.Steve of Jobs is the hi-def Apple TV. The MacBook Air clearly has the wow factor and will be snapped up by niche buyers, but hi-def has far wider appeal and relevance. Surely Apple have to open up to having products like this being resold through high street consumer retailers? That's where people realise that hi-def is what they always wanted. Will Apple do it? This stuff is too good to sit in minimalist 'computer shops'.

Post for Technorati to register my claim for www.clickrich.co.uk

Sorry folks, just publishing this post so I can claim the blog under my new URL www.clickrich.co.uk.

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ClickRich is Back

No, it's not the title of a song.

After a break of 6 months or so I've decided to dip the old quill in the ink and post on my blog again.

The reasons I stopped are complex, and probably the subject of another post, but as aLUKEonLIFE noted, many of us had scampered off to Facebook.

After some playing with FB and dabbling with my old feeds again, I can see how the two Web2.0 phenomenon each fulfil different roles in my world. Also, reading of my blog's demise on someone else's blog gave me the sort of social connection that Facebook otherwise satiates. Blogging is not just sitting in hotel rooms writing posts. There are real people (and the odd webcrawler) reading this stuff- and that's deeply satisfying (even the crawlers- well, someone programmed them you know).

So, I hope some of you out there have not retuned your RSS feeds to more worthy authors and we can get back to the business of blogging hapless posts about my antics and hopefully the odd bit of healthcare IT insight!

Google's Worst Kept Secret

Well, the rumours about Google launching a phone have been around since at least December last year and the hype has gradually been building. However, when you look at the number of partners involved in the first tangible news on the Google Phone, you begin to be amazed at how they've kept it as quiet as they have.

Web2.0 Will Re-Ignite of the Value of Information

The Internet killed the value of information. Information became so pervasive that traditionally information-based businesses needed to reinvent themselves to survive because a few button clicks in Google (or even AltaVista) could open up a library of information more impressive than most... well... libraries. Professional service providers became undermined by automated tools and strove for added value.

With Web2.0 allowing almost anyone to become a publisher, you might have expected this trend to continue. Has it? Will it? Actually, I'm going to be rash and make a prediction. Safe in the knowledge that I can delete this post down the line, I'm going to put my head on the block of futurology. I believe information has become such a commodity that people are finally starting to recognise the value of good quality sources. Others might say that we've all experienced misinformation online and that such scraping of the barrel was bound to induce a hockey stick kicker. Differentiation has real meaning. Wikis compiled by professional service providers are garnering a respect not seen since the late eighties. Beware the expert- they're back, and they really are experts!

The true acid test though, is "are people prepared to pay for it?" Look out for those green shoots. Expect a resurgance in subscription newsletters, but watch for the subtle transfer to the blog format. Round the corner is a new wave of knowledge commerce.

Food Heroes

Regular readers will know the hallowed reverence with which I acclaim engineering heroes of yesterday. They will therefore understand how delighted I am that, perhaps, the greatest engineer of his time Isambard Kingdom Brunel has been at last been given the accolade of having a crusty bloomer named after him. About time too.

Congrats to The Boston Tea Party cafe in Exeter who have put The Brunel sarny together. Exactly what a peppered pastrami with horseradish mayo, tomato, red onion and rocket in granary has to do with the son of a Frenchman who designed ships, bridges, tunnels and railway stations is anyones guess. Fortunately, The Boston Tea Party do a great Latte, so they can name their sandiches what they like!

My Toothbrush is more Powerful than my First Computer

Reading an article in the latest Wired magazine about microprocessors in the home, I was astonished to see that even my electric toothbrush has a chip which is capable of processing 10 Million Instructions Per Second (MIPS). Sure, that oomph is probably only telling a motor what to do and managing the power around the rechargeable battery, but then you can still drive a Lamborghini at 30 mph if you want to.

This prompted me to find out how my first computer compared- the ZX81. The processor was a Zilog Z80 with, according to Lud's Linux Corner, just 0.58 MIPS.

So, my toothbrush has nearly 20 times more processing power than my first computer... discuss!

I'm an Electricity Junky

Going about my work I carry around a plethora of devices, all with a nasty ampere habit! I need to feed this habit. The problem has been exaggerated by the recent arrival of a Nokia N95, whose GPS feature (with the navigation subscription) has been wholly useless to me (I know where I've been going) but which I leave turned on for the pure fun of it. BUT IT SUCKS POWER. Add onto this my tendancy to leave bluetooth on all the time means that I've formed an acute sensitivity to where the power sockets are in any room or building I enter. No matter whether it is a bar, a friend's home, a business partner's office or public buildings, I enter rooms with my eyes wide open and scanning the skirting board like a junkie needing a fix.

What with our sources of energy becoming increasingly precious and our cravings for power sockets increasing, what would you call the resulting phenomenon?

Power pinchers? Power poachers? Socket surfers? Electricity junkies? Ampere addicts? Hz hoppers (hertz hoppers)? Volt hoovers?

Tags: technology, mobile phone, ampere addict, fix, electricity junkie, GPS, junky, hertz hopper, habit, Hz, power pincher, power poacher, socket surfer, volt hoover, Nokia, N95, navigation

Microblogging- a Sort of Electronic Graffiti?

There was a fantastic article in today's Financial Times by Chris Nuttall titled "Micro-bloggers of the world keep it short" which describes the phenomenon which is set to put all us macro-bloggers with the dinosaurs- Micro-blogging.

Unlike blogging, micro-blogging puts more emphasis on the aggregation of even more sporadic information through sites and apps such as Twitter, Tumblr, Jaiku, Mozes and Moodgeist. The article quotes Jack Dorsey, the founder of Twitter, on how the limiting of posts to 140 characters (the SMS single message limit) is like "...writing on a wall and if some chooses to read it they can do".

As a child of the 70s and 80s, it strikes me that this is analagous to graffiti. On the surface, it seems futile, but it shows that many people are driven to hang their short thoughts out there and people do enjoying reading them- and not only to find out how free 'Mandy' is with her affections or who "was here".

Tags: technology, Internet, blogging, blogger, micro-blogging, microblogging, macro-blogging, macroblogging, graffiti, Financial Times, FT, Twitter, Tumblr, Jaiku, Moodgeist, Mozes, FT

Review of a Spartan Healthcare Computing 2007

I have great respect for the organisers of the event, the British Computing Society (at least, I think they're involved somewhere along the line) and the exhibitors who made a brave stand, but that was the problem with Healthcare Computing 2007- it felt like the last stand. Having two posts in a row about the stiffling of innovation in the health care sector and I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but the event really depressed me.

Most annual shows for any industry sector worth billions of Euros are showcases of the latest and greatest technologies with all the buzz that goes with it. It simply wasn't all that. Harrogate was not ringing to the beat of deal making and new product launches. It was like stepping back at least 5 years. Perhaps more. I was going to have a harrumph at Cerner for emphasising the divide between the have (...an NPfIT contract) and the have nots (...an NPfIT contract) because their stand dwarfed most others... but at least they supported the event. BT, iSoft and the other big contract holders didn't even show up. Having been a supplier in another sector not too long ago I really appreciate the costs associated with exhibiting at such an event and therefore the valiant efforts of those who showed.

I spotted suppliers at the event who had chosen not to exhibit. They, and some of the exhibitors who could be frank with me, lamented the fact that of the thousands of people who pass through the depleted halls, only a handful of people are buying. The rest are not as they've no decision making power.

Still, with 90 minutes of my time there to go, I finally found a couple of tech nuggets. They were well hidden, reflecting the lack of recognition of anything new, but that makes the opportunity all the greater for us.

Tags: technology, health care, innovation, UK, healthcare IT, health care IT, Cerner, exhibition, Harrogate, Harrogate Computing 2007

Has State Managed Health Care Stifled Technology Innovation?

This will almost certainly prove to be a controversial post. I don't intend to offend, but I do wish to stimulate debate.

The hypothesis of the debate is that since the creation of the National Health Service in 1947, the UK health care sector has not been conducive to developing new technologies.

Although this has been in my mind for a while a piece of evidence came to me in a presentation on medical imaging at the IET London Local Network last night by Teresa Robinson, a Consultant Clinical Scientist in Bristol. Thanks for that Teresa, although I must stress that these are my views. Teresa showed that the early Computed Tomography (CT) research and development was done in the UK by EMI. The presentation also noted various British luminaries in the advancement of medical imaging.

EMI made a huge commercial success from innovations in such areas as radar, millimeter waves, microwave and CRT. This spans a period from WW2 through to recent decades. For some reason, EMI could not repeat that success with CT (which is also in the radiating electrophysics domain) and EMI abandoned its efforts in that arena. Now, just a few decades on, the CT industry is dominated by Siemens of Germany, GE of the US, Phillips of the Netherlands and Toshiba of Japan. These are all countries with what you might call progressive health care systems.

What went wrong? Perhaps EMI did not find a domestic marketplace full of clients ready to try new techniques?

I feel that customers drive innovation. It is their hunger to do things better, faster or cheaper that compels industry to satiate that hunger. Free health care at the point of delivery is a great vision, but have we lost the leading edge? Are the two mutually exclusive?

Tags: technology, Health care, innovation, NHS, National Health Service, UK, medical imaging, CT, Computed Tomography, GE, Siemens, Phillips

Going Ga Ga for Open Process Frameworks

Not since Jim felt the same techno-twinge of excitement 339 days ago in March 2006 has anyone posted anything on a blog about Open Process Frameworks (OPF)*. Anyway, yours truly was trying to reconcile our organisation's Testing Process with a third party's who we need to demonstrate compliance to. In needing a little Google-help I stumbled across the Open Process Framework Repository Organization.

The description on the tin isn't going to see this competing with Britney's shaven head for popularity in the search engines... "a public-domain object-oriented framework of free, open source, reusable method components". However, this is a gold mine for IT professionals. Anyway, if you haven't already sensed that this is serious competitive advantage stuff, then more fool you... I'm not telling anymore. You need to find out for yourself.

I've only bounced around one small corner of this vast repository, but I'm sure this will be helping to shape our IT organisation work for years to come.

*quick Technorati plug.

Tags: technology, information technology, IT, metamodel, analysis, method, ontology, Open Process Frameworks, OPF, OPFRO, Open Process Frameworks Repository Organization, policy, procedure, repository

Technology Entropy in 3D Visualisation

Not long ago visualisation was the preserve of cutting edge aerospace research. In the last decade, it was still the preserve of high end workstations from organisations like Silicon Graphics. Those folks are still leading the pack, but now fairly ubiquitous PCs and Macs can be used with the right software to create stunningly rendered environments. Still, I was amazed to see recently that 3D visualisation has moved into the realm of the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader. The 3D images need to be created from a CAD package with the $995 Adobe Acrobat 3D product, but then anyone with Reader can view and manipulate the image. Sounds dull huh? Just try it...

Have a look at this jet engine data sheet. Zoom in on the engine in the top right corner of the sheet and then use the special toolbar to pan, zoom and rotate. Also, try the tabs on the left hand side to add or remove components and assemblies.

Absolutely amazing. Just remember this is a free viewing tool.

There is a warning message here for other specialist technology companies. You need to keep innovating to stay in business. You can't hold back the knowledge from progressing into the main stream- I call it 'technology entropy'. We're seeing the same in healthcare with Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) which are used to store and distribute complex and large MR and CT images. We are moving from this being the exclusive domain of heavy iron manufacturers into being wrapped up in terrabyte drives, browser applets and broadband connections.

Tags: technology, technology entropy, visualisation, visualization, Adobe, 3d, Adobe Acrobat 3D, Adobe Acrobat Reader, SGI, healthcare IT, PACS, render, IT

Google Ten Things

A colleague highlighted Google's Ten Things to me. Fantastic ethos.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.
2. It's best to do one thing really, really well.
3. Fast is better than slow.
4. Democracy on the web works.
5. You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
6. You can make money without doing evil.
7. There's always more information out there.
8. The need for information crosses all borders.
9. You can be serious without a suit.
10. Great just isn't good enough.

Have a look at the source for more information.

We were already applying some of these in our business, but we will learn from the others.

Tags: business, Google, ten things

How Tech Savvy are You? Vista Wizard or Vista Wotnot?

When impressing upon people how tech savvy you are, don't sum up your cutting edge knowledge in terms of what you read about the launch of Vista this morning in "Metro" (the free London paper). We want to hear about how it compares with the Mac OS roadmap, whether the pricing model is too complicated and how it reflects the Windows Presentation Foundation- not that it "is apparently better than XP". $200 billion says it is better than XP!

Sometimes, you meet people like that and wonder why they are in IT.

Tags: technology, information technology, IT, Microsoft, Windows, Vista, career, jobs