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10/01/2020

Have you ever asked yourself: Do I have a fat tongue?

It's not a idle query. If you are one of the one billion people globally who suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, having a fat tongue could be a key reason you snore, choke, gasp or stop breathing periodically during the night, ruining your sleep and potentially your health.
"The question then was if you reduce the fat in your tongue, does that improve your sleep apnea? And the answer from our paper is 'yes,' " said Penn Medicine sleep specialist Dr. Richard Schwab, the lead author of a new study published Friday in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The new study found you can trim down your fatty tongue as you lose overall body fat.

09/01/2020

Townew Trash Can
This high-tech trash can sense when the garbage is overflowing and seals the bag automatically, reducing odors. Once you remove a bag, another one replaces it.

11/12/2019

Man beats AI drone in first race of its kind

One of the world's top drone pilots has beaten nine computer-piloted drones in a race around an obstacle course.

Swiss pilot Gabriel Kocher wore first-person-view goggles to pilot his drone through the course in six seconds.

The fastest automated drone, completing the unseen course in 12 seconds without the use of GPS or any human intervention, won a $1m (£0.76m) prize.

Organisers the Drone Racing League predicts AI-powered drones will dominate the competition by 2023.

Its first artificial-intelligence robotic racing contest was the result of a collaboration between aerospace giant Lockheed Martin and crowd-sourced problem-solving platform HeroX.

"Our team worked really hard throughout each stage to bring a robust and (most importantly) fast solution to the table," said the prize-winning MVLab team.

"We are proud to have won despite the remarkable competitors that we had to face.

07/12/2019

Artificial intelligence apps, Parkinson’s and me
In my work as a journalist I am lucky enough to meet some brilliant people and learn about exciting advances in technology - along with a few duds.

But every now and then I come across something that resonates in a deeply personal way.

So it was in October 2018, when I visited a company called Medopad, based high up in London's Millbank Tower.

This medical technology firm was working with the Chinese tech giant Tencent on a project to use artificial intelligence to diagnose Parkinson's Disease.

This degenerative condition affects something like 10 million people worldwide. It has a whole range of symptoms and is pretty difficult to diagnose and then monitor as it progresses.

Medopad's work involves monitoring patients via a smartphone app and wearable devices. It then uses a machine learning system to spot patterns in the data rather than trying to identify them by human analysis.

In its offices we found one of its staff being filmed as he rapidly opened and closed his fingers - stiffness in these kind of movements is one of the symptoms of Parkinson's.

As we filmed him being filmed, I stood there wondering whether I should step in front of the camera and try the same exercise.
For some months, I had been dragging my right foot as I walked and experiencing a slight tremor in my right hand.

Getting to grips
I had first dismissed this as just part of getting older, but had eventually gone to see my GP.

She had referred me to a consultant neurologist, but at the time of filming I was still waiting for my appointment.

As we left Medopad, I clenched and unclenched my fingers in the lift and reflected on what I had seen. A few days later my coverage of the project appeared on the BBC website.

Three months on, in January this year, I finally met the consultant.

She confirmed what I had long suspected - I was probably suffering from idiopathic Parkinson's Disease. The "idiopathic" means the cause is unknown.

As I got to grips with the condition and started a course of medication, I quickly found out that there are all sorts of unknowns for people with Parkinson's.

Why did I get it? How quickly will the various symptoms develop? What are the hopes of a cure?

There are no reliable answers.

My response has been to take a great interest in how the technology and pharmaceutical industries are investigating the condition.

Developments in artificial intelligence, coupled with the availability of smartphones, are opening up new possibilities, and this week I returned to Medopad to see how far it had progressed.

I asked the firm's chief executive, Dan Vahdat, whether he had noticed anything that suggested I might have a special interest in Parkinson's when I first visited.

"I don't think we noticed anything specifically," he said.

"But - and that's weird for me to tell you this - I had this intuition that I wanted to get you to do the test."

That, of course, did not happen but over the last year there has been a clinical trial involving London's King's College Hospital.

People with Parkinson's have been given a smartphone app, which their relatives use to record not just that hand-clenching exercise but other aspects of the way they move.

"We think this technology can help to quantify the disease," Dan explained.

No instant impact
"And if you can quantify the disease, it means you can see how the disease progresses.

"It gives you lots of opportunities, in terms of treatment adjustments, interventions at the right time, potentially screening a larger cohort of patients with the technology in ways that were not possible before."

This made me think about my own situation.

Since February, I have been prescribed Sinemet - one of the most common Parkinson's drugs - in the form of two tablets taken three times a day.

While some patients see an instant impact, I cannot say I notice much effect.

If anything my main symptom, dragging my right foot, has got slightly worse. When I see my consultant every four months we discuss whether the prescription should be adjusted, but it is difficult for me to quantify my symptoms.

Dan told me this was exactly the kind of scenario they are trying to address.

"We think you will end up having a more continuous observation via machine and the doctors can look at it remotely. And with that they will be able to adjust your treatment, if needed, because potentially right now you're either overdosing or underdosing."

I am now going to get access to the trial app and look forward to finding out what it says about me.

This is just one of many projects run by a variety of companies where real-time data is collected from people with Parkinson's and other conditions via their handsets.

The search for a cure to Parkinson's goes on. We appear to be a long way off, but in the meantime quantifying a condition like mine could do a lot to improve how I and many others cope with the symptoms.

What is exciting to me is that the smartphone revolution, which I have documented since watching Steve Jobs unveil the iPhone in 2007, now promises to change healthcare just as it has transformed many other aspects of our lives.

And I hope to continue reporting on that revolution for many more years.

05/12/2019

Jio New Plan Prices Announced: Latest All-in-One Plans See Up to 39 Percent Tariff Hike

Jio latest plan prices have finally been revealed, and will go into effect from Friday, December 6. Here are the details about Jio new plan prices.

Jio new plans have been announced, and they are being called 'All-in-One Plans' by the company. The Reliance Industries-owned telecom operator has followed Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea to unveil revised mobile tariffs with price hikes. To recall, Airtel and Vodafone Idea had announced their revised plans on Sunday itself, and they went into effect on December 3, while Reliance Jio had indicated it would be raising prices, but had withheld the revised prices until today. Jio's latest plans, more expensive by up to 39 percent compared to its older plans, go into effect from Friday, December 6.

The new plans, according to rough calculations, are up to 25 percent cheaper than the new call and data tariff plans rolled out by its competitors Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea. According to new tariffs, Jio customers will have to pay Rs. 555 for 84-day validity and 1.5GB of data per day, which is 39 percent higher than the earlier plan of Rs 399 offering the same features.

Reliance Jio latest plans see it raise the price of the Rs. 153 plan to Rs. 199, the Rs. 198 plan to Rs. 249, the Rs. 299 plan to Rs. 349, the Rs. 349 plan to Rs. 399, the Rs. 448 plan to Rs. 599, the Rs. 1,699 plan to Rs. 2,199, and the Rs. 98 plan to Rs. 129.

The Rs 199 plan is a month long valid plan, which offers 1.5GB per day, and is about 25 percent cheaper than the plans of rivals offering similar benefits at a price of around Rs. 249. Jio new plans are claimed to provide up to 300 percent more benefits to Jio consumers compared to previous plans.

Jio new plan prices Data FUP for offnet calls in minutes Validity (days)
Rs. 129 2GB 1,000 28
Rs. 199 1.5GB/ day 1,000 28
Rs. 249 2GB/ day 1,000 28
Rs. 329 6GB 3,000 84
Rs. 349 3GB/ day 1,000 28
Rs. 399 1.5GB/ day 2,000 56
Rs. 444 2GB/ day 2,000 56
Rs. 555 1.5GB/ day 3,000 84
Rs. 599 2GB/ day 3,000 84
Rs. 1,299 24GB 12,000 365
Rs. 2,199 1.5GB/ day 12,000 365

03/12/2019

Samsung’s foldable phone keeps getting delayed, prompting many to wonder whether it will ever see the light of day. The latest report about the so-called Galaxy X claims that it will in fact hit stores

01/12/2019

SR-71 Blackbird: The Cold War spy plane that's still the world's fastest aircraft

During the Cold War, this plane could fly higher and faster than any other -- and 55 years after its first flight, it still does.
The Lockheed SR-71, designed in secrecy in the late 1950s, was able to cruise near the edge of space and outfly a missile. To this day, it holds the records for the highest altitude in horizontal flight and the fastest speed for a non-rocket powered aircraft.
It was part of a family of spy planes built to venture into enemy territory, without being shot down or even detected, in a time before satellites and drones.
The black paint job, designed to dissipate heat, earned it the nickname Blackbird, and paired with the sleek lines of the long fuselage, made the plane look unlike anything that had come before -- a design that hasn't lost any of its brilliance.

28/11/2019

The Haven
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