Computer-generated doctor could clear up confusing test results

Why it matters to you

Medical test results can be confusing, but this computer-generated physician may help the elderly get a better handle on their health.

Americans are aging and doctors are in short supply. By 2025, there could be a shortage of 90,000 physicians, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

To deliver results more efficiently, many clinics have turned to online portals where patients can access and review their scores. But, rather than clearing things up, these numeric results often end up confusing patients, particularly older ones, even more.

“This is one reason why patient portals are often underutilized, especially by less educated, older, sicker patients,” Daniel Morrow, an educational psychologist at the University of Illinois, told Digital Trends. “This is a big problem because these are the patients who most need to understand this information and stand the most to gain from ready access to well-designed health information that can support self-care.”

Morrow and his team developed a computer-generated doctor that reads test results in layman’s terms, accompanied by graphics that compare the patient’s test scores with ideal results. The aim is to make these online portals more accessible, while making the results understandable and engaging.

“Traditionally patients turn to their providers, such as physicians and nurses, to help make sense of their numbers,” Morrow explained. Nurses and doctors help patients grasp their test results, and give nonverbal cues that engage and support the patient emotionally.

“The use of a conversational agent to deliver test results in portal environments can emulate some aspects of face-to-face communication that may help patients understand and respond appropriately to their health information,” Morrow continued. “This should also increase patients’ use of their portals.”

In the study, participants between the ages of 65 and 89 played the role of patient, listening to the hypothetical test results delivered by the computer doctor in either a natural or synthesized voice. The participants then answered questions to show their comprehension. In both cases the participants accurately understood and remembered the content or the report, though some participants preferred the natural-sounding voice to the synthesized one.

The questions of natural versus synthesized voices is important when it comes to human-machine interactions. A phenomenon called the “uncanny valley” — in which a human replica suddenly becomes really creepy when it seems too humanlike — can make people reject robots all together.

Roboticists and AI developers are constantly trying to avoid this valley by making their bots obviously not human, by making them cartoonish or by exposing their inner wires.

Morrow and his team don’t expect their computer doctor to deliver results in the immediate future, but their next steps will be to refine the system and test how patients might respond to various configurations to find which one is most relatable.

“The agents will vary in age and gender, but also in realism, such as stylized and cartoon versus photo-realistic,” he said. “We will examine whether some types of participants prefer the more stylized agent over the more realistic version, perhaps to avoid the ‘uncanny valley.’”

A paper detailing the study was published this month in the Journal of Biomedical Informatics.

Computer-generated doctor could clear up confusing test results

Why it matters to you

Medical test results can be confusing, but this computer-generated physician may help the elderly get a better handle on their health.

Americans are aging and doctors are in short supply. By 2025, there could be a shortage of 90,000 physicians, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

To deliver results more efficiently, many clinics have turned to online portals where patients can access and review their scores. But, rather than clearing things up, these numeric results often end up confusing patients, particularly older ones, even more.

“This is one reason why patient portals are often underutilized, especially by less educated, older, sicker patients,” Daniel Morrow, an educational psychologist at the University of Illinois, told Digital Trends. “This is a big problem because these are the patients who most need to understand this information and stand the most to gain from ready access to well-designed health information that can support self-care.”

Morrow and his team developed a computer-generated doctor that reads test results in layman’s terms, accompanied by graphics that compare the patient’s test scores with ideal results. The aim is to make these online portals more accessible, while making the results understandable and engaging.

“Traditionally patients turn to their providers, such as physicians and nurses, to help make sense of their numbers,” Morrow explained. Nurses and doctors help patients grasp their test results, and give nonverbal cues that engage and support the patient emotionally.

“The use of a conversational agent to deliver test results in portal environments can emulate some aspects of face-to-face communication that may help patients understand and respond appropriately to their health information,” Morrow continued. “This should also increase patients’ use of their portals.”

In the study, participants between the ages of 65 and 89 played the role of patient, listening to the hypothetical test results delivered by the computer doctor in either a natural or synthesized voice. The participants then answered questions to show their comprehension. In both cases the participants accurately understood and remembered the content or the report, though some participants preferred the natural-sounding voice to the synthesized one.

The questions of natural versus synthesized voices is important when it comes to human-machine interactions. A phenomenon called the “uncanny valley” — in which a human replica suddenly becomes really creepy when it seems too humanlike — can make people reject robots all together.

Roboticists and AI developers are constantly trying to avoid this valley by making their bots obviously not human, by making them cartoonish or by exposing their inner wires.

Morrow and his team don’t expect their computer doctor to deliver results in the immediate future, but their next steps will be to refine the system and test how patients might respond to various configurations to find which one is most relatable.

“The agents will vary in age and gender, but also in realism, such as stylized and cartoon versus photo-realistic,” he said. “We will examine whether some types of participants prefer the more stylized agent over the more realistic version, perhaps to avoid the ‘uncanny valley.’”

A paper detailing the study was published this month in the Journal of Biomedical Informatics.

Google wants your next car to have Google Assistant built in

Your next car could come with Android Auto and Google Assistant pre-installed.

Android is the world’s most popular mobile operating system, powering devices we use every day such as our smartphones, TV set-top boxes, and wearables. You may even use Android in your car via Android Auto. Google is continuing its work to make our cars smarter via Android, announcing new partnerships with automakers in its latest blog to get Android Auto and Google Assistant built right into the infotainment console of cars coming off the lot.

Android Auto has been around for nearly three years and is already available in a variety of car makes and models, as well as aftermarket stereos. Furthermore, at last year’s Google I/O, the company announced a native Android Auto app for smartphones, which opened up access to the millions of Android users around the world who now only need a cheap car mount for their phone to enjoy Android Auto in any car (even if yours is still rocking a tape deck). Despite all that, Android Auto may still feel like a work in progress to some and an unnecessary luxury feature to others.

Google wants to change that perception, so at this year’s developer conference, Google will be unveiling the next phase of Android Auto’s development, which includes partnerships with car companies such as Audi and Volvo who will be including Android Auto and Google Assistant integration in their new lineup of cars — bringing us that much closer to making Knight Rider a reality.

Google will discuss these new Android Auto innovations at an informational session Wednesday at Google I/O and will also have some live demonstrations available on site. According to Bloomberg Technology, Google will demo the updated OS running on the Audi Q8 and Volvo V90 SUVs. You can learn all about the latest Android Auto developments at the informational session Wednesday afternoon which will also be livestreamed for those not in attendance.

All About Android Auto

• Getting started with Android Auto in your car
• Using Android Auto natively on your phone
• Android Auto news
• Apps that work with Android Auto
• Join the Android Auto discussion!

Put your Galaxy S8 or S8+ in a Vena case for as little as $2 right now

Our friends at Thrifter are back again, this time with a great set of deals on Vena Galaxy S8 and S8+ cases!

Cases can be a necessary evil, especially on new phones like the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+. The phone itself is so beautifully designed, but that design always makes it quite fragile (just ask our buddy Matt Brown). If a case isn’t something you really want or will be using often, odds are you don’t want to pay a lot for it. The folks at Vena understand this, and we’ve partnered with the company to offer some of its great cases for as little as $2 with free standard shipping.

In order for the coupons to work, you’ll need to pick the non-Prime listing when adding it to your cart. Be sure to copy the correct coupon code for the case that you are looking at.

Galaxy S8

• vAllure (Gold/Navy Blue) – $3 with code Q8UQV4TC
• vAllure (Gold/Coral Pink) – $3 with code Q8UQV4TC
• vAllure (Gold/Black) – $3 with code Q8UQV4TC
• iSlide (Teal/Champagne Gold) – $1.98 with code KQ7UJX2W
• vCommute (Gold/Black) – $4.85 with code LVXXEQ7T
• vLove (Rose Gold/Coral Pink) – $3.91 with code YTA62BVT

Galaxy S8 Plus

• vAllure (Gold/Navy Blue) – $3 with code Q8UQV4TC
• vAllure (Gold/Coral Pink) – $3 with code Q8UQV4TC
• vAllure (Gold/Black) – $3 with code Q8UQV4TC
• iSlide (Teal/Champagne Gold) – $1.91 with code ST77PR3K
• vCommute (Gold/Black) – $4.99 with code LVXXEQ7T
• vLove (Rose Gold/Coral Pink) – $3.89 with code BWCEJDZJ

These deals won’t stick around long, so be sure to grab one for yourself now, before they are all gone!

For more great deals be sure to check out our friends at Thrifter now!

Moto C and C Plus bring Motorola simplicity to under-€119 crowd

New phones for growing markets.

Motorola has announced two new budget phones for Latin America, Europe and Asia Pacific, the Moto C and Moto C Plus.

While both phones share design similarities with the Moto Gs announced earlier in the year, they expense with the metal pleasantries in order to keep the corners down. Instead, they focus on software experience and battery life.

The Moto C offers a “micro-textured back cover”, a quad-core Snapdragon processor and optional LTE capabilities, along with a 2350mAh battery and a 5MP rear camera. The 3G version ships for €89 for 1GB RAM and 8GB storage, while the LTE model offers the same memory configuration for €99. The phone is also available in a number of colors, including Metallic Cherry, Pearl White, Fine Gold or Starry Black.

The Moto C Plus is a dual SIM phone with 16GB of storage and 1GB of RAM, along with a massive 4,000mAh battery and an upgraded 8MP rear camera. It starts at €119. Both models have 2MP front-facing cameras.

These aren’t particularly exciting phones to anyone used to massive spec sheets in North America or Western Europe, but devices like the Moto C are integral to Motorola’s growth in developing markets like India and parts of Latin America where the brand is extremely strong.

Google Assistant may be coming to iOS quite soon

Google Assistant may soon be available on iOS devices.

Google is still working to get its AI Assistant on every Android device you own, but if rumors are true, it will also be an iOS launch soon as a standalone app.

As reported by Android Police, Google may announce a new Google Assistant app for iOS in the next few days. While this is but a rumor at this point, the timing is pretty perfect what with Google I/O kicking off later this week and the early release of the Google Assistant SDK they unveiled in late April.

Technically, Google Assistant is already available for iOS, albeit as the very limited chat-based version baked into Google Allo. You’re able to use Google Assistant within the app to find restaurants and quickly look up answers to questions while you’re chatting with your friends, but let’s be real here — it’s a far cry from the full Google Assistant experience found on Android and stashed in an app that most iOS users don’t use. Then there’s Siri, of course, which is built into iOS the same way Google is including its own Assistant in Android Marshmallow and Nougat.

We’ll have to wait and see if this rumor has legs, but we likely won’t have to wait very long with Google I/O kicking off Wednesday.

Amazon is dangerously close to being the new king of messaging

With Alexa gaining the ability to make voice calls and Echo Show bolstering the living room, Amazon moves a step closer to messaging ubiquity.

It was about three or four years ago when my wife and I decided to finally get rid of our landline. We weren’t really using it anymore — it was mostly an emergency backup, and a great way for solicitors to bug us. (That it occasionally made phantom 911 calls in the middle of the night was another impetus.)

This presented a problem, though. Our kids ride the bus home, and family members pick them up there. But what happens if for some reason nobody shows? The kids need a way to call their parents.

I had a brief flirtation with Google Hangouts for this. But it was clunky at best, and now is a nonstarter, since Hangouts is dying. And so this is how our eldest daughter got “her” first phone way earlier than I would have liked.

This is also why I’m ridiculously excited about Amazon’s recent announcements. Let’s start with the more important of the two.

Preorder Echo Show

But first … a word on your contacts

Kinda surprised nobody’s screaming that there aren’t more privacy controls in the new Alexa messaging.

— Phil Nickinson (@mdrndad) May 12, 2017

When you first set up Alexa calling you have to give the app access to your contacts. Don’t do that without some hesitation. You’re giving Amazon the ability to see every person in your contact list. Same goes for anyone who has you in their contact list.

That in and of itself isn’t evil, but it’s poor implementation. I have at least one person in my Alexa contacts now who I had to look up. They’d emailed me for an Android Central thing back in 2012. And now I have their phone number and the ability to call their Amazon devices wherever they may be? That’s ridiculous.

Amazon must (and I’m sure will) add granular controls as to who is allowed to contact you through Alexa calling. And it needs to do it ASAP.

Alexa calling changes everything

If you have young kids or aging parents, Alexa calling and an Echo Dot is a no-brainer.

What I really needed was a way for my kids to be able to call their parents without needing a phone. The new calling (and messaging) feature in the Alexa app makes this a reality.

Setup was super simple. You’ll need the Alexa app, (available for Android and on iOS — and of course on Amazon’s Fire tablets) and you’ll need to give it access to your contacts. Once you do that it’ll match the peeps in your phone with the peeps who own an Echo or have the Alexa app installed. (There’s a pitfall here, but we’ll get to that in a second.)

And that’s it. Once that’s done you can call anyone in your Alexa contacts. And when you do so it’ll ring their mobile devices and any Echo devices. If you don’t want to have a live call, you can just leave a voice message, or send a basic text message through the Alexa app.

Don’t mistake these for regular phone calls and SMS messages — they’re not. But that matters less and less these days. So long as the meaning gets through, who cares what the mechanism is?

And my kids aren’t the only ones who are going to take advantage of this. My grandparents are 90 and still ridiculously awesome. (One’s on an iPhone, and the other on Android. Along the same lines as my wife and I, now that I think about it.) But smartphones at 90 aren’t necessarily as easy as smartphones at 40. Simpler is better, especially if an emergency happens. And is there really anything more simple than a $50 Echo Dot that can call me in mere seconds?

For young kids and aging relatives, this is a game-changer.

Echo Show — we’ll see … and it will, too

The other major announcement from Amazon was Echo Show — an Echo with a touchscreen and a camera. That’s a big deal, too, for a few reasons.

All this connected stuff at home is great. But we’ve yet to see a proper visual hub that could finally tie it all together. Sure, there are DIY smart mirrors, and Apple TV and Android TV have the potential to serve as display hubs. But none of that has really happened yet.

A home hub display and cross-platform video calls will be a BIG deal for a lot of people.

And none of them has the Skills that Alexa has. That is, Alexa is the endpoint for thousands and thousands of APIs for so many services. A visual hub makes so much sense here.

It’s also a big deal for video calls. While Apple’s FaceTime has always been excellent for this, it’s limited to someone having an Apple device nearby. Same for any other video chat service. Mobile devices are, by definition, mobile. But video calls on a home hub mean it’s always there, and always available, for everyone.

I’m less bullish on the “Drop-in” calls — wherein someone — after you’ve granted them access — can literally drop in on you with a video call, basically saving them the trouble of accepting the call themselves. (They’ll still have the option to reject it, though.) But I’ll just have to wait and see how well that actually works.

And Echo Show will do more traditional things like watch videos and play music and order things from Amazon. And surely that’s just the beginning.

While having a camera in the living room isn’t a novelty anymore, I get that folks will still be hesitant to let Amazon (or any other company traditionally outside of the security space) have a look at what’s going on so easily. But I also think the ease of communication will trump that fear.

An imperfect, huge head start

Messaging through Amazon Alexa is a big deal. But it’s far from perfect and definitely has room to improve. A few thoughts off the top of my head:

• Again, the contacts thing is ridiculous. That never should have happened.
• So technically my kids are calling my through my own account, but whatever. It just works.
• But having more than one person in the home is a little clunky, even with the Amazon Household stuff. You have to tell Alexa to change accounts. Google has that beat with voice recognition for multiple accounts on Google Home.
• (That also means anyone who has access to an Echo device can listen to your messages. So keep things SFW, folks. Or not.)
• Know what else I want? Some sort of web or (even better) native computer support for when I’m sitting here working.
• The Alexa app is still not great, if you’re looking to actually use it as a messaging app. In fact, it’s bad for that.
• And Amazon needs to give more assurances that your messages are secure.

The simple fact of the matter, though, is this: While Apple beat everyone to the mobile assistant game with Siri, and Google Assistant is very good and growing all the time, neither has reach ubiquitous status, leaving Amazon to fill in the large gaps left by anything that’s not traditionally mobile.

Google Home has helped with that, but there’s no denying Echo has a huge lead. Microsoft is even farther behind with its Cortana speaker, and anything similar from Apple is still in the rumor status. Will Echo Show extend Amazon’s head start? There’s almost no way it can’t at this point.

For now, it’s still Amazon’s game to lose. And with Alexa calling and soon with Echo Show, it’s making nothing but winning moves.

See the entire Echo family at Amazon

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Chrome OS’ experimental night mode saves your eyes

Google isn’t going to sit on the sidelines while Apple and Microsoft bring night modes to their platforms. Users have discovered that Canary builds of Chrome OS now include an experimental night mode (Night Light, to be exact). Flick it on and it’ll give the screen a yellowish tint that cuts down on blue light and, theoretically, helps you sleep. At the least, it should be easier on your eyes during those late-night Chromebook sessions.

As with any Canary build, though, you’ll have to put up with a lot to get this feature early. Aside from going through the process of switching to the Canary update track (we hope you’re comfortable with command lines), you’ll have to run a decidedly buggy operating system. Be ready for crashes and other hiccups. If you can’t bear without a little web surfing before bed, though, it might be worth the sacrifice until night mode reaches stable Chrome OS versions.

Source: Reddit

Apple Releases iTunes 12.6.1 With Minor App and Performance Improvements

Alongside the release of a new macOS Sierra 10.12.5 update that brings some minor bug fixes and performance improvements, Apple has launched a new version of iTunes, iTunes 12.6.1.

According to Apple’s release notes, iTunes 12.6.1 includes “minor app and performance improvements.” More specific details on those improvements are not available.

iTunes 12.6.1 can be downloaded for free using the Software Update function in the Mac App Store.

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Samsung Galaxy Note 8 said to have 6.3-inch 18.5:9 screen

There have already been plenty of leaks and speculation surrounding Samsung’s replacement for the disastrous Galaxy Note 7, and every one of them show that the new handset will firmly put memories of exploding devices into the dim and distant past.

The latest is that the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 will be the largest Note device yet, mainly in screen real estate. It will also adopt the same 18.5:9 aspect ratio as the Galaxy S8 and S8+.

Speaking of the latter phone, if this suggestion is true, the Galaxy Note 8 will have a screen size only a tad larger. It states that the Note 8 will sport a 6.3-inch screen.

• Samsung Galaxy Note 8: What’s the story so far?
• This amazing picture leak could show us the Samsung Galaxy Note 8

Considering the S8+ has a 6.2-inch display, we can guess that both handsets will be similar in form factor. The Note will have the trademark S Pen stylus though, we’d imagine.

The Chinese tipster also reaffirms that the Note 8 will have Samsung’s new dual camera system on the rear – something we’d heard before. However, he says that it won’t be the first Samsung device to have that snapper, as otherwise though. Instead, that will be the foldable much-rumoured Galaxy X.

Considering we’re not expecting to see an official launch for the Note 8 until August/September, there is plenty of time for more rumours. We shall keep you informed.