Smartwatches: data freshness, interactive surfaces, and how the old became new again.
If you are an older runner, like me, there’s a high chance that smartwatches are nothing new to you. In 2005, when I was at Nokia Ventures Organization, t...
Category: The Narrative
Are EMR systems in the 10s like AOL in the 90s?
I’ve been getting a feeling that EMR systems, while here, are a decade late. While I am totally in favor of digitizing the patient, what EMR vendors set o...
“Welcome to the Post-Pasteurian Age” (my HealthFOO Ignite talk that never happened)
I was blessed with an invitation to HealthFOO this year, here in nearby Cambridge. Alas, the event was cancelled due to the intense events after the Boston Mara...
Why can’t health be a sufficient incentive?
There have been a slew of consumer healthcare devices that have come to market ranging from fancy pedometers and activity meters to apps that track your every m...
Think mobile when designing a mobile app
One of my favorite radio stations in the Boston area, Phoenix WFNX 101.7, died an inglorious death last year. But, like the phoenix, it rose from its ashes as a...
Looking back on 2012: I am a “fermentos”
At the start of each year, I write down a few things I’d like to accomplish or focus on for the year. Usually, it’s a behavior I’d like to see improve or do mor...
Do you set goals for the heck of it?
Last November, I participated in NaNoWriMo, a month long writing frenzy with the sole goal of writing 50,000 words (“quantity, not quality”). Not on...
Ego play: My Erdős–Bacon number is 7, sort of
Paul Erdős was the most prolific publisher of mathematics papers (more than Euler). Much like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, mathematicians have an number to conne...
Brief commentary on App.net, the new social network “that aspires beyond chat and ads”
I’ve been meaning to comment on App.net, a new for-fee social networking service. To me, it seems that App.net is trying to build an alternative social we...
Ideas are not unique, no matter how far-fetched – a personal story
Last Christmas-time, I was driving to go get my parents (they live a few states away) and was listening to a Science Friday about Mars. The guest was an advocat...