A matter of time... for which? the 0.03?  or the rocket ship taking off?

RIP Carrie and Michael, far too young

Fred, let's get a move on already ;-)

T

Happy Hanukkah, Christmas and New Year to All

T

https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/15/apple-watch-falls-app-fallcall/

A trauma surgeon and emergency medicine doctor are crowdfunding FallCall, an Apple Watch app which automatically detects when someone has fallen and calls for the appropriate level of help.

The app was developed in response to statistics showing that one in three people aged 65+ fall each year, resulting in 27,000 deaths in the US. Many of those who fall are unable to call for help, either because they are unconscious or cannot reach a phone. The app is designed to take action automatically, based on the detected severity of the fall …

A prototype of the app successfully detected 90% of serious falls – from a standing position or higher – and 70% of less serious ones, such as slipping from a seat. The team are seeking funding to fully develop the app and create the back-end server support, and to improve on these percentages.

Falls are reported to a central monitoring facility which can then take appropriate action, from attempting to contact the person to making a 911 call. The app also has a manual help button which the wearer can press to call for help.

Trauma surgeon Shea Gregg first founded the company to develop the app last year.

I am a trauma surgeon who has practiced for years at busy trauma centers. My passion and focus has been to reduce injury in the over 65 population and to create innovative ways for this group to communicate with caregivers and providers. Our company was founded in July 2015 with a mission to build simplified telemonitoring solutions for elders and their caregivers for ecosystems already widely distributed. By making app-based technology smarter and easy to use, we have begun this evolution.

The app is exclusive to the Apple Watch, as this has the necessary processing power to run the fall-detection algorithms, which are based on ones used by multi-million dollar industrial analytics machines.

The campaign at MedStartr aims to raise $180,000, with contributions starting at $20 to be listed as a patron of the technology.

Slowly but surely, Google is staking its claim on the smart home. After taking a big step with theGoogle Home voice assistant speaker, its latest move will fit more types of connected devices under its smart home umbrella.

Google will expand and improve the Weave smart home platform over the coming months, the company announced via its developer blog today. Plus it's rolling out a developer preview of Android Things today -- allowing developers to easily build devices with a simple Android operating system.

Weave is essentially a language for smart home devices. It allows your thermostat to talk to your lights, and both of those devices to send info to the cloud and your phone. Google first announced Weave back in 2015. Since then, the company's expanded the software to work withGoogle Assistant -- its voice-activated personal assistant, similar to Apple's Siri.

Then, last month the company rolled out Google Home -- an always-listening speaker like theAmazon Echo. Say, "OK Google, turn off the lights," and Google Home will hear you, and the built-in Assistant will follow your command if you have compatible, connected light bulbs.

A bigger and better smart home

If Weave's better, will that make Google Home better?

Now, Google's expanding what Weave can do, which will hopefully result in more smart home capabilities for the Google Home. Right now, Weave only talks to light bulbs, smart plugs, switches and thermostats. Google's blog promises to support more device types, although it doesn't specify if those what kinds of devices they might be.

The blog also lists several big smart home companies that will be adopting Weave in the near future: Belkin WeMo, LiFX, Honeywell, Wink, TP-Link and First Alert.

I liked Google Home when I reviewed it last month, but it lags behind the Amazon Echo in terms of what it can control in the smart home. Right now, Home only works with Philips Hue,SmartThings, Nest and IFTTT. That's not enough for Home to compete.

Opening the door for developers

The Android Things developer kit is also promising -- part of the reason for the Echo's success is its open relationship with developers, and the dev kit seems on track to do the same for Google's smart home. Android Things replaces Brillo -- a similar way to build Android into smart home devices that was announced along with Weave. Devices built with Android Things will automatically receive updates from Google, and will also work with Weave so as to communicate with the rest of your smart home.

In addition to Android Things, Google's doing its best to open the doors of its smart home to developers. Last week, the company introduced tools allowing developers to work with Google Assistant.

Connecting the dots

Thankfully, this latest batch of updates will bring Google and Nest closer together. Weirdly, even though Google owns Nest -- the smart home company behind the Nest Learning Thermostat -- they each have a similar but different smart home language, and both languages were called Weave. Finally, in an overdue move, the two Weaves will come together and hopefully tie the expansive Works with Nest product catalog together with the Google Assistant.

We don't know for sure yet if this announcement means Google Home will come closer to reaching its potential, but Google seems to be making the right moves by expanding and clarifying Weave, and reaching out to developers with Android Things. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed these announcements lead to tangible changes for Google Assistant and Google Home soon.

Thanks Moo, 

back up into the .05's, whew!

T

the media, those ba$tard$ Just kidding.

When this question was first posed.. the thought that came through my mind were the reports of The Donald (his company I, suppose) stiffed a whole bunch of contractors who provided work/skilled trade out of their paychecks.

He supposedly went on to say to the people to "go ahead and try and sue me" (not word for word here, and again, second hand news on Left leaning media channel) "I will bury you in paperwork."

Small companies / individuals who can't afford lengthy legal fights.

Does that sound familiar to anyone? either having heard that on the news about the Donald and his companies, or a Company that people bake pies out of and have with either a slice of cheese melted on top or, ala mode, vanilla. Take the end product, not pay for it.

Sorry if I am offbase here. Just thinking.

T

and thanks Moo/ and hi to TommeeeK