Android app helps blind navigate: When smartphones started featuring large touch, beautiful screens, few thought that these devices would be useful to the blind. It turns out, however, that all the technology inside the devices can come together to provide quite a bit of independence for those that can’t see. Two new Android apps have been released to help the visually impaired navigate new environments on their own. WalkyTalky from Eyes-Free Project uses Google’s (NSDQ:GOOG) navigation app to provide almost step by step directions to a destination while reading out street addresses, business names and other landmarks as users pass them. Google’s own Intersection Explorer speaks the names of what is around, but the user can also swipe the screen toward the direction that interests him or her and the application will respond with information about what’s ahead that way. 
GeoCom creates a universal communicator for caregivers: Duluth, Minn.-based GeaCom created a device called Phrazer to help medical professionals communicate with patients that speak a foreign language. The device holds a large number of pre-recorded videos of doctors asking questions in various languages. The patient answers questions by tapping on the screen and results are then presented in the caretaker’s own language.
Zephyr’s monitoring devices helped clinicians track Chilean miners’ vital signs: Annapolis, Md.-based Zephyr Technology is proudly touting that its Physiological Status Monitors were used to keep an eye on the health of the trapped Chilean miners. The men had to do daily exercises to keep themselves in shape and to be able to fit into the extraction capsule, while medics on the surface were able to monitor their heart rate, breathing, and other vitals using the devices.
Masimo releases three new patient monitoring devices: Masimo Corp. is unveiling three new products this week at the American Society of Anesthesiologists annual conference in San Diego. The Radical-7 features SET pulse oximetry and the ability to add total hemoglobin (SpHb), total arterial oxygen content (SpOC), carboxyhemoglobin (SpCO), methemoglobin (SpMet), and PVI options. The Patient SafetyNet allows clinicians to keep an eye on up to 80 Masimo monitors and features the new Halo index, “a dynamic new indicator that facilitates continuous global trending and assessment of multiple physiological parameters to quantify changes in patient status,” according to the company. Halo provides a simple readout ranging from 1 to 10, giving clinicians a quick assessment on each patient throughout the ward with the company’s readout devices and on smartphones.
A weekly roundup of new developments in wireless medical technology and mHealth, by MedGadget.com.
