Almost all the articles you see in this newsletter come from my research. But this one needs to be credited to a dear friend of mine (and a subscriber) Mike Harnish. A super-secret start-up company called Humane has been teasing its first device, the AI Pin, for most of this year. This past Thursday, it finally made everything public and launched its new device. It is billed as the device for the post-smartphone world.

The Pin is a square gadget that attaches itself to objects, such as clothing, using magnets. But the clip is more than just a magnet—it's also a battery pack, so you can keep the Pin powered throughout the day by changing the battery. The device comes with two "battery boosters," although we don’t know how long a single battery will last. It tracks and records its surroundings using motion, depth, and camera sensors, and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon processor. It can pair with Bluetooth headphones and features an integrated speaker that Humane refers to as a "personic speaker."

Humane has devised novel methods to engage with the Pin in the absence of a screen. Although its main purpose is voice-activated, it also has a green laser projector that can display information on your palm. Because the gadget has a touchpad, you can also use gestures to interact with the Pin by holding things up to the camera. You must manually activate the Pin because it isn't always recording or even listening for a wake phrase. A "Trust Light" on it blinks on and off while the Pin is recording, so everyone knows it’s recording.

Humane prefers that the Pin not be thought of as a smartphone accessory, but as a completely independent gadget. The Pin, a charger, and those two battery boosters are yours for $699. There is also a Humane Subscription which costs $24 a month and comes with a phone number and cell data on Humane's own branded wireless service that uses T-Mobile's network, cloud storage for pictures and videos, and the capacity to query AI models indefinitely—though we're not sure which ones, precisely.

The operating system on the Pin is known as Cosmos, and Humane appears to be envisioning a more fluid system that can summon different AIs and other tools as needed, as opposed to a collection of apps. It sounds a lot like ChatGPT's plugin system, which allows you to customize your chatbot experience with additional features or data.

The Pin can convert spoken audio into multiple foreign languages and compose messages that sound like you. You can use a function that summarizes emails in your inbox. Support is available for Tidal music streaming, which uses a "AI DJ" to select songs based on your current context. Additionally, it will have AI-centric photographic functions, but it's unclear exactly what that entails.
​
Humane wants the Pin to be a basic, self-contained wearable, but there is a method to control it: you may set up and personalize your gadget before wearing it using an online portal called Humane.center. It's the method by which you retrieve the messages, images, and recordings you take while wearing the pin.
The company will begin taking orders on November 16. No shipping date has yet been set. If you’re in that “early adopter” class of technology consumers, have your credit card ready and decide which shirt or blouse is going to be the first to ‘hold’ your new AI Pin.

The single most important factor in surviving a battlefield injury is the combat medic. The medic is first on the scene and can administer help within the Golden Hour or even Golden Ten Minutes. Quick, effective medical procedures can be the difference between life and death.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has selected Raytheon BBN to lead a team to develop an augmented reality device that will provide the combat medic with a virtual assistant. The system will use a set of AR goggles, which will provide visual information on 50 different medical procedures.

Medics are highly trained in the most common battlefield injuries, but they aren’t doctors or surgeons and often have no experience in little-used procedures which may be needed at a moment’s notice. This is why DARPA is working on its Medical Assistance, Guidance, Instruction and Correction (MAGIC) system. 

MAGIC uses a pair of augmented reality goggles equipped with audio and video sensors and special artificial intelligence software that can act as an assistant to monitor the situation and advise the medic on how to proceed.

Raytheon will use machine learning technology to ‘teach’ the system both medical skills and situation assessment skills. The initial prototype will study 2,500 stereo videos and almost 50 million images. The machine learning process will review the historical data and synthesize useful concepts and solutions from that data.

When the AI software is ready, MAGIC should be able to provide spoken suggestions to medics or project visual overlays on the scene to guide their hands through needed medical procedures. The system will also provide events timing from engagement to final hand-off to field hospital personnel. MAGIC will also provide dosage guidance for in-field medications.

A first prototype is expected in about 18 months.
​
"The combat medical environment is challenging and chaotic," said Raytheon BBN scientist Brian VanVoorst. "Our goal for the Raytheon BBN MAGIC AI tool is to help support personnel to provide guidance as needed without disrupting their concentration."

Engineers from Yale University have developed a wearable device that can help individuals assess whether they have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The cheap device can clip onto a person’s clothes and capture aerosolized viral particles in the surrounding environment.

From rapid tests to vaccines, many extraordinary innovations have helped us navigate this global pandemic. While we have several ways to determine whether a person has been infected with SARS-CoV-2, we still can only guess when and how someone has been exposed to the virus.

This innovation from a team of Yale University researchers is hoping to fill that surveillance gap. Called the Fresh Air Clip, the device is cheap, designed to attach to a person’s collar and capture aerosolized viral particles around a person’s mouth and nose.

The clip captures viral particles on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) surface. At the end of a day, or several days, a wearer removes the clip and sends it to a lab, which uses polymerase chain reaction (PCR) analysis to determine the presence of SARS-CoV-2.

A new study is reporting on several tests of the Fresh Air Clip establishing it can effectively capture airborne viral particles. One experiment involved supplying the clips to several volunteers who wore the monitors for up to five days. Of the 62 monitors deployed, five returned positive results, showing exposure to SARS-CoV-2.

“Of the positive Fresh Air Clips, four were worn by restaurant servers and one was worn by a homeless shelter staff person,” the study shows. “Notably, two positive samples collected in restaurants with indoor dining were found to have high viral load when compared to the other samples (>100 copies per clip), suggestive of close contact with one or more infected individuals.”

As well as establishing the wearable monitor as being able to capture detectable levels of viral particles, the researchers note the device is sensitive enough to catch exposure events at sub infectious doses. This suggests the volume of viral particles picked up by the monitor allows for the quantification of environmental exposure to the virus. This is important, as it means the device does not simply offer an indication of viral exposure but a measure of the level of exposure.

Krystal Pollitt, a researcher working on the device, says one interesting potential use for the device could be to test the effectiveness of ventilation settings in COVID positive patient hospital rooms. Speaking to Yale News recently, Pollitt said her team found airborne traces of SARS-CoV-2 in hospital rooms that were thought to be well ventilated.

“We found this to be really interesting because we know that one of the infection control measures that is being highly recommended is enhanced ventilation,” said Pollitt. “Within the hospital network we had very high air change rates. Despite having those high air change rates, we could still detect airborne levels across the room.”

In its current form, the Fresh Air Clip can screen indoor environments and establish whether they are high-risk areas for exposure. Pollitt also said the wearable can also be used to identify indoor exposure events days before positive cases appear.

“The Fresh Air Clip can be useful for early identification of exposure events and allow for rapid action to be taken,” Pollitt said. “Exposed individuals can get tested or quarantine to prevent potential community transmission.”

The next big step for the device will be to develop ways for the monitor to offer real-time notification of viral exposure, in much the same way a radiation strip can immediately notify a wearer they are exposed to gamma or x-rays. Pollitt says she is interested in further developing the device with real-time exposure notifications.
​
“It’s key to report back results quick,” Pollitt says. “We are keen to incorporate techniques for real-time SARS-CoV-2 detection.”
The new study was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

A respected Apple analyst recently made a startling prediction about mixed reality/augmented reality (MR/AR): “We believe that MR/AR products could replace all display-equipped electronics in the long-term,” said analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. He expects Apple to play a big part in taking these emerging technologies mainstream.

He predicts that Apple will build several MR/AR products, eventually leading to augmented reality contact lenses. Because of these predictions, he believes that MR/AR could be the default human-machine interface in the future.

Part of Kuo’s job as an analyst for TF International Securities is to make projections about future technology. Often, he looks no farther ahead than the next iPhone, but a note sent to investors recently covers forecasts for at least a decade of change.

He believes Apple is committed to augmented reality because “MR/AR will be the next critical technology to define the innovative human–machine interface for electronic products,” according to the analyst. It will “redefine human behavior in creating, processing, and receiving information.”

For a look at what this prediction would mean in everyday life, a concept artist dreamed up a future Mac that uses AR to replace physical displays.

Kuo uses the term “MR/AR” in his research note, but both mean nearly the same thing. Each term has its fans. Whatever the acronym, the tech involves combining computer-generated images with reality to present additional information.

As the company that popularized the mouse and the multitouch screen, Apple has a long history of redefining the human–machine interface, which Kuo says gives it a leg up in making AR a mainstream technology.

AR Products Coming in Three Phases. Apple put a Lidar scanner in the iPhone 12 and the iPad Pro for enhanced AR, but these haven’t exactly taken the world by storm. Kuo says Cupertino won’t be successful in this area until it makes “standalone devices designed for MR/AR applications.” But the analyst believes Apple is committed to rolling out dedicated MR/AR devices over the coming years, though not as quickly as some have predicted.

Kuo says the first will be a headset. This will use “Sony’s Micro-OLED displays and several optical modules to provide a video see-through AR experience,” according to Kuo. But it might also include virtual reality capabilities and be integrated with Apple Arcade and Apple TV+.

A drawback of current VR headsets is that they are bulky. Kuo indicates Apple is trying to get its product down to between a quarter-pound and just less than half a pound (100g to 200g).

Kuo predicts the headset will launch in 2022 for about $1,000. This is in-line with a previous prediction from analysts at JPMorgan Chase.

Phase 2 will be AR glasses. And despite promises that these will debut soon by other sources, Kuo sees them launching “in 2025 at the earliest.” There’s allegedly not even a prototype yet, and the analyst didn’t guess at a price.

The headset is intended to be used in the home or workplace, but the AR glasses are for on the go. And that’s why they might not replace future headset versions in Apple’s product lineup.

And Apple augmented reality development won’t stop there. Kuo forecasts that the eventual culmination of Apple’s efforts in this area will be AR contact lenses. They will “bring electronics from the era of ‘visible computing’ to ‘invisible computing,’” according to Kuo.
​
Of course, this product is well beyond current technology. That’s why the analyst will only predict, “We expect this product to be available after 2030.”

Following its release of a pocket-sized handheld camera late last year, DJI – the Shenzhen-based tech company best known for its drones – has recently launched its first action camera, the Osmo Action. While the new camera is a latecomer to the game, it should compete well with similar products, such as the GoPro.

Design and Hardware.The Osmo Action doesn’t stray too far from conventional action camera design – it is small, rectangular-shaped and made of rugged composite material that combines plastic and rubber.
It is waterproof, shockproof and, at 124g, can be easily mounted on top of helmets, skateboards or bicycle handlebars.

There’s a 12-megapixel fisheye lens with a wide 145-degree field of vision. All of this is standard fare for action cameras and is neither better nor worse than GoPro’s Hero 7 Black in any meaningful way.

There is, however, one stand-out feature: in addition to the main screen on the backside of the camera, there is a secondary front-facing display, which has never been offered before on an action camera.

Having a front-facing screen improves shooting selfie videos significantly as it allows the user to see precisely what they’re recording. It makes so much sense in today’s selfie-centric vlogger generation that, in hindsight, it’s baffling why GoPro has never thought of this before.

The camera has three hardware buttons – power, shutter, and mode switch – and a responsive main screen that supports swiping and tapping. The bright, 2.3-inch main screen is large enough to let the user easily tweak shooting modes and settings.

The camera runs on a relatively small 1,300mAh battery, which offers about 90 minutes of recording time, but it is removable, and thus, interchangeable. The footage is stored on a micro-SD card, which is not included with the camera.

Software.The Osmo Action can connect to DJI’s Mimo app, available on both iOS and Android, and once linked; the camera can be controlled remotely with a mobile device. However, the device’s touch screen interface is so intuitive that most reviewers found little need to sync up the app.

The camera can capture videos at a wide range of resolutions, from 720p up to 4K/60fps. Shooting in lower resolution, such as 1080p, allows the camera to bump the framerate up to 240fps, ideal for capturing fast-moving moments.

Performance.Electronic image stabilization (EIS) is crucial for action cameras as they’re meant to shoot on the move, so it’s just as well DJI has years of experience writing EIS algorithms for its high-flying drone cameras.

The camera’s EIS mode is called “Rock Steady,” and it can be activated with a couple of taps. The reason DJI gives the option to toggle EIS on or off is that there are trade-offs.

Footage with “Rock Steady” on have a slightly smaller field of vision (digital cropping is essential for EIS) and dynamic range suffers due to lack of HDR (high dynamic range). You should turn the mode off to get the best video quality and colors if you’re shooting with the device in a stationary position, but anytime you’re moving, turn it on as the difference in fluidity and stability is drastic.

Conclusion.
At $380, the Osmo Action initially seemed expensive for someone who might not participate in extreme sports and who has tested fully capable smartphones for around that same price range.
​
Extreme sport participants who like to document their adventures used to have their options dominated by GoPros. At $349, DJI’s Osmo Action is offering a cheaper alternative to the GoPro’s Hero 7 Black at $420, and you get the front-facing second screen. Not surprisingly, GoPro has now reduced the price of the Hero 7 to $349! The Osmo Action may have just taken GoPro’s throne.

Put your augmented reality goggles on and dial up 2040. Here’s one possible view of where the world will move in the next 22 years.

You've just got an autonomous electric taxi from the gym to work, picked up a coffee and—in the lift to your office—watched a short advertisement on the heads-up display projected by your wearable digital assistant, clipped to your collar.

In a matter of minutes, four transactions have taken place. And you haven’t put your hand in your pocket to get out a wallet once. Notes and coins have long since disappeared, and nobody even uses their phone to pay for things anymore. In fact, no-one thinks about money in 2040—it just happens. (Well, technically you were recognized by an iris scan for each transaction, but pointing that out destroys the magic of it.)

Back up a minute. You might have noticed there were four transactions in those few minutes, but only two purchases: the taxi and coffee. That’s because you also received two micropayments this morning—small amounts of money you were given in exchange for a service. The first was while you were at the gym. When you joined the club, you agreed to share your cardiovascular data with a medical-research company in return for micropayments every time you work out. You also received a micropayment when you watched the advertisement about that trip to Venice suggested by your digital assistant.

In 2040, the value of your data no longer flows to search providers or social networks. Instead, it all goes to you, allowing you to sell it to offset small costs throughout the day. The monetization of every aspect of our daily lives also creates a role for charity and altruism: You have the option to donate part of your regular micropayment income stream to your favorite charity in return for tax credits.

At lunchtime, you meet up with an old friend who now works overseas. After your meal, you both ask your digital assistants to split the bill and add a tip. You get up, pass your thanks on to the chef (yes, chefs are still human in 2040) and walk straight out; there’s no need to ask for the check. Fortunately, your visiting friend doesn’t have to worry about currency exchange costs, even though they’re not in their home country. Like you, they use a handful of digital currencies that are acceptable the world over and have minimal conversion costs.

The cryptocurrencies that emerged in the 2010s were not destined to last. But the blockchain tech that underpinned them evolved to create a new generation of super safe and completely transparent forms of money. Indeed, technology arrived just in time to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of trust in traditional institutions, which had historically acted as guarantors of currency stability.

After a hard day at work, your digital assistant knows you might not be in the mood to review your finances on the way home. But your assistant knows how to make the experience personal—and quick. “If you switch your regular savings to another provider, you’ll be able to reach your holiday saving target quicker and improve your credit rating; do want me to action that? And, by the way, your utility provider contract expires next month; would you like me to switch you to the lowest-cost renewable provider in line with your preferences?” Five minutes later, the autonomous cab reaches your apartment—and your finances are under control.
​
Will all this be possible? Of course, no one knows. But micropayments, iris scans, and digital assistants are already a reality. Furthermore, the furor over the use of personal data by social networks could lead to people being rewarded for the use of their information. Our expectations as consumers are soaring as our lifestyles change and the pace of innovation accelerates. Increasingly, we want to live in a cashless mobile-only society—and technology will, therefore, find a way to make that happen.

The Thermia online health educational tool, developed at Boston Children’s Hospital, has enabled one-month-faster prediction of seasonal influenza outbreaks in China, via its digital integration with a commercially-available wearable thermometer. The findings appear in a new study published in the American Journal of Public Health. 

“The fact that we were able to predict influenza outbreaks faster than China’s national surveillance programs really shows the capacity for everyday, wearable digital health devices to track the spread of disease at the population level,” says the study’s lead author Yulin Hswen, who is a research fellow in Boston Children’s Computational Epidemiology Group and a doctoral candidate at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

Although the Boston Children’s team has previously demonstrated that social media can be used to track disease, this is the first time they’ve shown that outbreaks can be predicted through an integrated wearable device and online tool.

“Collectively, we are still coming to terms with the data deluge from wearable devices, but it is imperative that we begin to generate value from this data,” says the study’s senior author Jared Hawkins, PhD, who is the director of informatics at Boston Children’s Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator (IDHA). “From a public health perspective — as we have shown with this latest study — there is enormous potential for tapping this data for research, surveillance and influencing policy.”

Thermia, a fever educational tool created by the Boston Children’s team, works as a standalone digital application or can receive a child’s temperature reading directly through the iThermonitor, an FDA-approved, patch-like thermometer that is worn under the arm. This integration is possible under a license agreement between Boston Children’s and the iThermonitor’s manufacturer, Raiing Medical Inc., which is based in China. Although the wearable is available around the world, consumers in China have been the earliest adopters of the device.

In China, the Thermia-empowered iThermonitor has quickly gained popularity among digitally-savvy parents who have purchased the wearable device to monitor their child’s temperature. When iThermonitor detects a fever, parents can access Thermia via web or mobile and answer online questions about the child’s current symptoms and medical history.

Data collected from these interactions is anonymized and analyzed by the Boston Children’s team to track disease at the population level. Using this method, the team collected nearly 45,000 data points from China’s Thermia users between 2014 and 2016. They discovered that outbreaks of “influenza-like illnesses”, which had the hallmark signs of influenza, could be detected digitally in real time.

In comparison to the influenza surveillance data collected by the National Health and Family Planning Commission (NHFPC) of the People’s Republic of China, the data from iThermonitor and Thermia identified emerging outbreaks of the flu an entire month earlier.

In contrast, China has 620 million mobile internet users who can theoretically access the standalone Thermia application from any computer, smartphone or even the Amazon Alexa assistant.

“In geographically large and densely populated countries like China, tools like Thermia can provide better on-the-ground disease surveillance than by relying on data that is only captured at the point of treatment in the clinic,” says Hswen.
​
You can access Thermia to learn about your child’s symptoms and contribute to Boston Children’s anonymized disease database.

Around 21 million fitness trackers were sold in 2016 and the 2017 forecast by Gartner is 25 million, with the promise of monitoring and improving activity levels.

Devices and health apps that advise people to walk 10,000 steps a day could be doing more harm than good, scientists have warned.

Dr Greg Hager, an expert in computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said many apps and devices had no real evidence base and that a one-size-fits-all approach could be harmful for some people.

Dr Hager told delegates at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Boston that the 10,000 steps doctrine was based on just one study of Japanese men dating back to 1960.

“Some of you might wear Fitbits or something equivalent, and I bet every now and then it gives you that cool little message 'you did 10,000 steps today’,” he said. 

“But why is 10,000 steps important? Is that the right number for any of you in this room? Who knows? It’s just a number that’s now built into the apps.

“I think apps could definitely be doing more harm than good.” 

In 2013, the NHS established a Health Apps Library to provide patients with a choice of health and treatment software and GPs were encouraged to recommend apps to their patients.

Yet the University of Liverpool found that just 15% of those listed for depression were proven to be effective.
Dr. Steve Flatt, of the university’s psychological therapies unit, who co-authored the study published in the BMJ, said: “This field is currently in its infancy and can currently be likened to the snake oil salesmen of the 1860s.

Simon Leigh, a health economist who co-authored the BMJ paper, said: “A GP, endocrinologist or other fitness specialist would unlikely recommend 10,000 steps for most people.” 

Research last year by the University of Pittsburgh concluded that people who used a wearable technology device lost less weight than those undertaking standard weight loss techniques.

Dr. John Jakicic said not everyone was physically capable of doing 10,000 steps. “If you are elderly or infirm then this is not going to be good for you,” he said.
​
“We need to be careful about relying solely on these devices. However, there is a place for these, and so we need to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater in my opinion.”

Senstone may be one of the world's smallest wearables — and perhaps one of the most useful. 
The tiny device has one function: to help you keep track of your ideas, to-do lists, and notes while you're on the go. 

Senstone records voice memos, uploads them to an app, and transcribes them for you. The device is on Kickstarter with the goal of raising $50,000.

Here's how it works. Senstone records voice notes that are then uploaded to an app on your iPhone. The device connects via Bluetooth. To record a note, you push a button on the side of the device. To stop recording, you press it again.

The device is designed to help "capture the things in your daily life that you don’t want to miss" — things like goals, ideas, or notes. Rather than taking out your phone and typing out a note, Senstone wants to be like a low-effort journal. 

With different interchangeable backs, you can clip it to your collar, wear it as a necklace or even wear it as a wristband.

The device can record for up to one minute at a time — for now. Eventually, Senstone will be able to record for up to four hours offline, and longer when it's paired with your phone. 

You can charge Senstone by sitting it in this charging dock, which connects to any USB port. Early testers have used the device for up to a week without charging the unit. 

Finally, Senstone's technology can automatically transcribe your notes for you, saving both a written version and the original recording and labeling them by the date, time, and location at which you recorded. It supports dictation in 11 languages including Mandarin and Ukrainian.

And by saying "hashtag" and then a word before you stop recording your note, Senstone will identify that as a category tag. If you press the hashtag button at the top of the app, it will take you to all of your notes from your hashtagged categories. 
​
Early backers of Senstone's Kickstarter campaign can get the aluminum or plated brass versions of Senstone by pledging $80.

Fabrics that can generate electricity from physical movement have been in the works for a few years. Now researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have taken the next step, developing a fabric that can simultaneously harvest energy from both sunshine and motion.

Combining two types of electricity generation into one textile paves the way for producing garments that could provide a source of energy to power devices such as smartphones or global positioning systems.

“This hybrid power textile presents a novel solution to charging devices in the field from something as simple as the wind blowing on a sunny day,” said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering.

To make the fabric, Wang’s team used a commercial textile machine to weave together solar cells constructed from lightweight polymer fibers with fiber-based triboelectric nanogenerators.

Triboelectric nanogenerators use a combination of the triboelectric effect and electrostatic induction to generate small amounts of electrical power from mechanical motion such as rotation, sliding or vibration.
Wang envisions that the new fabric, which is 320 micrometers thick woven together with strands of wool, could be integrated into tents, curtains or wearable garments.

“The fabric is highly flexible, breathable, lightweight and adaptable to a range of uses,” Wang said.

Fiber-based triboelectric nanogenerators capture the energy created when certain materials become electrically charged after they come into moving contact with a different material. For the sunlight-harvesting part of the fabric, Wang’s team used photoanodes made in a wire-shaped fashion that could be woven together with other fibers.
​
While early tests indicate the fabric can withstand repeated and rigorous use, researchers will be looking into its long-term durability. Next steps also include further optimizing the fabric for industrial applications, including developing proper encapsulation to protect the electrical components from rain and moisture.