2018 March 07 | AIVAnet

Mar

Vertigo can ruin life for millions — these biofeedback headphones aim to help

Tens of millions of Americans suffer from vertigo, the sensation of whirling and associated loss of balance that often occurs when people look down from a great height. The symptoms can range from unpleasant to downright debilitating for those afflicted by it. Fortunately, a smart new wearable technology could soon help to treat vertigo. Developed by researchers from several institutes in Germany, the special headphone-based Equivert biofeedback system is designed to help deal with symptoms caused by issues with the vestibular organ in the inner ear, which is used for helping people maintain balance.

Burkhard Heidemann, group manager and Equivert expert at the Fraunhofer IMS, told Digital Trends that the headphones verbally guide users through a series of exercises, designed to make sure they maintain the “equilibrium position,” in which their bodies are balanced. Because the headphones boast a built-in accelerometer and rotational sensors, they know when users are leaning instead of standing straight — and they can alert you to this fact.

“The patient receives instructions straight from the headphones,” Heidemann said. “This happens via acoustic signals. When the patient fluctuates too far to the right, the sound seems to come from the right, similar to a parking [sensor]. The system controls how well the patient has been able to perform the exercises and, if necessary, switches to the next difficult stage. The headphones are controlled by gestures: If the patient takes the headphones in his hand, for example, it automatically switches on.”

On top of this, the Equivert headphones promise, for the first time, to make dizziness into an objective measurement. “Until now, diagnoses were only possible with a doctor’s eye,” Heidemann continued. “The diagnosis and therefore also the treatment were difficult. Equivert provides measurements about the exact fluctuations of the patient. The results are then visually illustrated by the doctor on his computer.”

So far, no clinical trials have been carried out using the headphones, although these are planned for the near future. Nonetheless, Heidemann said that medical approval is just months away. In August, the first systems will be made available to buy. They will cost $1,600 for medical practices and around half that for individual patients. The team is planning an Indiegogo campaign to offer them to early adopters.

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Mar

BlackBerry sues Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram over messaging services

adrianhancu/123RF

It looks like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram could be in a bit of hot water over their messaging services. BlackBerry has filed a lawsuit against the services, now all owned by Facebook, in a Los Angeles court, claiming that the messaging services infringe on patents owned by BlackBerry. It hasn’t yet given many details about the suit.

“As a cybersecurity and embedded software leader, BlackBerry’s view is that Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp could make great partners in our drive toward a securely connected future, and we continue to hold this door open to them,” said BlackBerry, according to a report from CNET.

Of course, Facebook is unlikely to take the suit on the chin. According to CNET, the social media giant argues that the suit “reflects the current state of [BlackBerry’s] messaging business,” and that the company has abandoned its efforts to innovate, instead looking to tax innovation from other companies.

Facebook certainly has a point when it comes to BlackBerry’s slowed innovation. Ten years ago, the company was one of the world’s leading phone companies, but since then it has largely ceased to make interesting products for consumers, and instead focuses on offering software to government and corporate clients. There are still a few BlackBerry phones out there, including the BlackBerry Motion and BlackBerry KeyOne, but they don’t sell very well, and they’re not all that interesting. On top of that, they’re built by TCL a Chinese electronics manufacturer that licenses the BlackBerry name.

The suit, however, likely relates to BlackBerry Messenger, or BBM, which was hailed as a secure and convenient way to send messages around the world without having to pay for international texts. Since then, online messaging has become a whole lot more popular — driven largely by the likes of WhatsApp and Facebook. Largely speaking, BlackBerry Messenger has since faded into an unused app.

It will be interesting to see what comes of the suit. BlackBerry has been to court a number of times in the past few years. Just last year, the company took Nokia to court, alleging that Nokia infringed on a BlackBerry networking patent.

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Mar

Superbugs may meet their match in this bacteria-busting molecule

One of humanity’s most impending threats come from organisms too small to spot with the naked eye.

In the next few decades, antibiotic-resistant superbugs could become more deadly than cancer, playing a role in 10 million deaths each year. They already contribute to the death of some 700,000 people annually.

“Superbugs are those that become resistant to many of the commonly used antibiotics due to misuse and overuse over the years,” James Hedrick, the lead researcher of advanced organic materials at IBM Research, told Digital Trends. “As they become resistant they become harder and harder to treat. Why worry? There are very few last lines of defense available.”

After nearly losing his leg to a bacterial infection in 2016, Hedrick was inspired to find a solution to the global superbug problem. He and his team partnered with the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) in Singapore to create a synthetic molecule capable of killing five types of superbugs with limited side effects, according to a paper the team published last week in the journal Nature Communications. Their hope is that this molecule can be used to create antimicrobial drugs capable of treating antibiotic-resistant infections.

“Our macromolecular antimicrobials mimic, to some degree, our innate immune system.” Hedrick said, “That is, antimicrobial peptides. This is a synthetic version of these natural polymers that act against the ‘ESKAPE’ pathogens that are responsible for most hospital-acquired infections. Moreover, it works on multi-drug resistant pathogens. This paper is the first example of a synthetic polymer that has been used in vivo to eradicate several different types of infections. The polymer is uniquely designed such that it does its business and then rapidly degrades into non-toxic byproducts that are easily passed from the body. Finally, serial sublethal passages of the polymer with bacteria, designed to promote resistance, did not facilitate any resistance.”

In their paper, Hedrick and his colleagues demonstrated for the first time that a biodegradable synthetic molecule can have a broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity in mice with limited toxicity. The study also gives weight to the new “macromolecular therapeutics” research field, which may be our best bet to quell the emergence of superbugs.