Google, Microsoft agree with consumer group and insurers on health-record policy.
A major consumer group, insurers together with Google and Microsoft said on Wednesday they have agreed to standards intended to speed adoption of personal electronic health records.
The electronic medical record field remains in its infancy. While U.S. privacy laws govern actions by medical providers such as doctors, there is little in the way of other established privacy, security and data usage standards despite decades of industry efforts.
Backers, which also include some doctors and employer groups, said they hope to break a stalemate in moving medical records online, sparked by consumer fears that their personal information will be abused, or held against them.
"A policy and privacy logjam ... has constricted some of the consumer uptake of these services," said James Dempsey, deputy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology, a privacy rights group that accepts some industry funding.
Principles for personal health records include an audit trail to track use of the data, a dispute resolution process for consumers who believe their personal information has been misused and a ban on using data to discriminate in employment.
Also signing on to the principles are WebMD Health Corp; Consumers Union, which publishes Consumer Reports; seniors' lobbying group AARP; and America's Health Insurance Plans, representing big insurers such as Aetna Inc.
But not all groups agreed the framework would be progress. The American Civil Liberties Union called the effort an "after-the-fact approach."
"Their approach is build a system and we'll find out about privacy after the fact," ACLU Senior Legislative Counsel Tim Sparapani said.
Separately, lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday debated a bill to set up a national coordinator for health information and encourage adoption of electronic technology.
A companion bill is working its way through the Senate, though its prospects are unclear. Concerns over privacy protections for consumers have stalled progress.
The ACLU objects to the current version of the bill because it lacks language letting patients review their own files and correct bad data.
Experts say the fragmented nature of the health care system, in which most doctors still use paper records and most patients do not have access to their own personal health information, has stalled adoption of digital health records.
But Microsoft this month announced that Kaiser Permanente, the biggest U.S. health maintenance organization, will use Microsoft's HealthVault platform to link Kaiser employees who volunteer to have their records transferred.
Google sells Google Health, a U.S. health data service that combines the leading Web company's search services with a user's personal health records online.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
New analog circuits could impact consumer electronics
Advances in digital electronic circuits have prompted the boost in functions and ever- smaller size of such popular consumer goods as digital cameras, MP3 players and digital televisions. But the same cannot be said of the older analog circuits in the same devices, which process natural sights and sounds in the real world. Because analog circuits haven't enjoyed a similar rate of progress, they are draining power and causing other bottlenecks in improved consumer electronic devices.
Now MIT engineers have devised new analog circuits they hope will change that. Their work was discussed at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco Feb. 11-15.
"During the past several decades engineers have focused on allowing signals to be processed and stored in digital forms," said Hae-Seung Lee, a professor in MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). "But most real-world signals are analog signals, so analog circuits are an essential part of most electronic systems."
Now MIT engineers have devised new analog circuits they hope will change that. Their work was discussed at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco Feb. 11-15.
"During the past several decades engineers have focused on allowing signals to be processed and stored in digital forms," said Hae-Seung Lee, a professor in MIT's Microsystems Technology Laboratories (MTL) and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). "But most real-world signals are analog signals, so analog circuits are an essential part of most electronic systems."
Philips NP1100/37
The good: Relatively inexpensive digital audio streamer; glitch-free wireless streaming; provides access to Rhapsody and Internet radio without a PC on; stylish design.
The bad: Limited file format support; doesn't include as many music services as competitors; only supports PCs for streaming your own music files; slight pause between Rhapsody tracks.
The bottom line: The Philips NP1100/37 lacks the bells and whistles of some other network digital audio players, but it should satisfy those looking for basic streaming on a budget.
The bad: Limited file format support; doesn't include as many music services as competitors; only supports PCs for streaming your own music files; slight pause between Rhapsody tracks.
The bottom line: The Philips NP1100/37 lacks the bells and whistles of some other network digital audio players, but it should satisfy those looking for basic streaming on a budget.
Mio 310 Car GPS Navigation
The mio moov 310 is perfect car GPS navigation to safe your money. You can buy it for only $179.79-$249.95. You’ll get text-to-speech direction and free one years real traffict update subscription. You must try hard to learn with device because Mio 310 has poor documentation. At all, Mio 310 is not bad device for your car.
Samsung A237 Phone (AT&T)
The Samsung SGH-A237 is an basic clam shell for customers who want a value without sacrificing functionality. The A237 features instant messaging capabilities with AOL, Windows Live and Yahoo! services, Mobile Email support and speakerphone and text messaging functionality. This new handset will be available for AT&T subscriber at 3rd quarter 2008
Radio emerges from the electronic soup
A self-organising electronic circuit has stunned engineers by turning itself into a radio receiver.
This accidental reinvention of the radio followed an experiment to see if an automated design process, that uses an evolutionary computer program, could be used to "breed" an electronic circuit called an oscillator. An oscillator produces a repetitive electronic signal, usually in the form of a sine wave.
Paul Layzell and Jon Bird at the University of Sussex in Brighton applied the program to a simple arrangement of transistors and found that an oscillating output did indeed evolve.
But when they looked more closely they found that, despite producing an oscillating signal, the circuit itself was not actually an oscillator. Instead, it was behaving more like a radio receiver, picking up a signal from a nearby computer and delivering it as an output.
In essence, the evolving circuit had cheated, relaying oscillations generated elsewhere, rather than generating its own.
Gene mixing
Layzell and Bird were using the software to control the connections between 10 transistors plugged into a circuit board that was fitted with programmable switches. The switches made it possible to connect the transistors differently.
Treating each switch as analogous to a gene allowed new circuits to evolve. Those that oscillated best were allowed to survive to a next generation. These "fittest" candidates were then mated by mixing their genes together, or mutated by making random changes to them.
After several thousand generations you end up with a clear winner, says Layzell. But precisely why the winner was a radio still mystifies them.
To pick up a radio signal you need other elements such as an antenna. After exhaustive testing they found that a long track in the circuit board had functioned as the antenna. But how the circuit "figured out" that this would work is not known.
"There's probably one sudden key mutation that enabled radio frequencies to be picked up," says Bird.
This accidental reinvention of the radio followed an experiment to see if an automated design process, that uses an evolutionary computer program, could be used to "breed" an electronic circuit called an oscillator. An oscillator produces a repetitive electronic signal, usually in the form of a sine wave.
Paul Layzell and Jon Bird at the University of Sussex in Brighton applied the program to a simple arrangement of transistors and found that an oscillating output did indeed evolve.
But when they looked more closely they found that, despite producing an oscillating signal, the circuit itself was not actually an oscillator. Instead, it was behaving more like a radio receiver, picking up a signal from a nearby computer and delivering it as an output.
In essence, the evolving circuit had cheated, relaying oscillations generated elsewhere, rather than generating its own.
Gene mixing
Layzell and Bird were using the software to control the connections between 10 transistors plugged into a circuit board that was fitted with programmable switches. The switches made it possible to connect the transistors differently.
Treating each switch as analogous to a gene allowed new circuits to evolve. Those that oscillated best were allowed to survive to a next generation. These "fittest" candidates were then mated by mixing their genes together, or mutated by making random changes to them.
After several thousand generations you end up with a clear winner, says Layzell. But precisely why the winner was a radio still mystifies them.
To pick up a radio signal you need other elements such as an antenna. After exhaustive testing they found that a long track in the circuit board had functioned as the antenna. But how the circuit "figured out" that this would work is not known.
"There's probably one sudden key mutation that enabled radio frequencies to be picked up," says Bird.
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