Archive for category: Technology

Information and stories about technology news.

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HIV-Detecting USB: Changing the Lives of HIV Patients

HIV-Detecting USB: Changing the Lives of HIV Patients

Scientists at Imperial College London and tech company DNA Electronics have developed a USB that can diagnose HIV and allow patients to track their own virus levels. This HIV-detecting USB could save the lives of many.

Worldwide, 36.7 million people have HIV. According to AIDS.gov, the majority of HIV-positive people are from disadvantaged countries. A large number are unaware of their status. Others who know they are positive do not have access to necessary equipment.

According to Dr. Graham Cooke, a researcher from the Department of Medicine at Imperial College, “We have taken the job done by this equipment, which is the size of a large photocopier, and shrunk it down to a USB.”

How Does It Work?

The process is simple. The patient places a drop of blood on the USB. A complementary metal-oxide semiconductor detects HIV RNA. The presence of HIV in the patient’s blood triggers a change in acidity in the metal, which is translated into an electrical signal. Users can read the results on a computer.

Scientific Reports published the results of trials in early November. The USB tested 991 blood samples with 95% accuracy. The average wait time to get results was under 21 minutes. The process is quick and accurate. The technology is still in its early stages and will not be on the market for a while, but according to reports, the HIV-detecting USB is relatively inexpensive to produce.

Easily Used Outside of Hospitals

The developers want this device to reach patients living in regions where hospitals have limited resources to monitor their patients’ blood HIV levels.

The device is not restricted to medical facilities. Patients in remote areas can use the device to monitor their own HIV levels. Tracking virus levels helps patients receive accurate antiviral treatments and prevent the development of drug resistance.

Cook said, “HIV treatment has dramatically improved over the last 20 years…However, monitoring viral load is crucial to the success of HIV treatment.”

Soon, this HIV-detecting USB may be instrumental to treatment in underserved areas around the globe.

– Karla Umanzor

Photo: Flickr

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SE200 Community Chlorine Maker: Clean Water in Five Minutes

SE200 Community Chlorine Maker: Clean Water in 5 MinutesClean water is unavailable to many people around the world. According to Water.org, 663 million people do not have access to safe drinking water.

To help remedy this issue, the SE200 Community Chlorine Maker is using electricity and salt to provide clean drinking water to people in need. By producing accurate amounts of chlorine, the battery powered device is able to clean 200 liters of water in five minutes. Chlorine kills an array of microbes and sanitizes water thoroughly. However, chlorine is not always available in remote and impoverished areas.

The Chlorine Maker is simple to use. Water is mixed with salt and poured into a brine bottle. Then the solution is added to the chlorine maker. The device is attached to either a 12V battery or wall plug. After the start button is pushed the liquid begins to bubble. This indicates that electrolysis is occurring. The chemical reaction creates bleach.

Originally this technology was developed by the military but the Mountain Safety Research (MSR) in collaboration with PATH, an international health organization, modified it so anyone can easily use it directly at water sources.

Compared to other chlorine generators, the SE200 Community Chlorine Maker is relatively inexpensive and easy to use. Most importantly, it is able to calculate the correct amount of chlorine needed each time it is used. The SE200 Community Chlorine Maker has been tested in different countries such as Kenya and Ghana. It was officially put on the market in May of this year. It currently costs $200.

MSR and PATH in partnership with World Vision and Operation Blessing want to bring the Chlorine Maker to communities in need of clean water at no cost to them. MSR launched an Indiegogo campaign to raise $50,000 in order to send a minimum of 2,500 devices to communities around the world by the end of 2017. These devices will provide safe drinking water for approximately 500,000 people.

In late November, MSR reached their $50,000 goal and now hopes to reach $60,000. They are currently at $59,500 with 645 backers. With their goals met, the SE200 Community Chlorine Maker will improve the lives of many.

– Karla Umanzor

Photo: Flickr

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Digital Otoscope: Can a Smartphone Detect Ear Infections?

Digital Otoscope
Ear infections are very common among young children and can be easily treated. By the age of three, a majority of children would have already experienced at least one ear infection. The problem emerges when ear infections go untreated. It can possibly cause serious medical issues. Researchers from Umea University in Sweden and the University of Pretoria in South Africa wanted to make diagnosis easy and affordable for people in developing countries. They created a software-based smartphone system along with a digital otoscope that can diagnose ear infections.

Claude Laurent, a researcher at the Department of Clinical Sciences at Umea University, says “Because of lack of health personnel in many developing countries, ear infections are often misdiagnosed or not diagnosed at all. This may lead to hearing impairments, and even to life-threatening complications.”

A digital otoscope is connected to a smartphone and takes photos of the eardrum. Then it is displayed on the smartphone. Since the software is cloud-based, the image is uploaded to the cloud. It is then analyzed and compared to archived images. The system automatically places it into one of the five diagnostic groups.

The system is completely portable allowing it to be used directly in the homes in villages and small towns.

Laurent says “Using this method, health personnel can diagnose middle ear infections with the same accuracy as general practitioners and pediatricians.” This is extremely important, as there tends to be a shortage of ear specialist in developing areas.

Traditionally, a pneumatic otoscope is used by doctors to view how much fluid is behind the patient’s eardrum. Although this method has been used for a long time, it is not always accurate. Often ear infections are misdiagnosed which may cause harm to the patient.

However, the software could possibly fix the problem of misdiagnosis. The digital otoscope has an 80.6 percent accuracy rate, while traditional otoscopes have an accuracy between 64 to 80 percent.

“This method has great potential to ensure accurate diagnoses of ear infections in countries where such opportunities are not available at present. Since the method is both easy and cheap to use, it enables rapid and reliable diagnoses of a very common childhood illness,” Laurent says.

Once widely available, this software-based smartphone system, with the use of cloud technology and a digital otoscope, will provide relief for children in various parts of the world.

– Karla Umanzor

Photo: Flickr

Agbots and the Eco-Friendly Unmanned Future of Farming

Future of Farming
As humanity changes and technology advances, one thing remains constant throughout human history. People need to eat, and the future of farming requires innovation to maintain sustainable food production levels. Additionally, with 19.81 percent of the global population working in the agricultural sector and the planet’s total population continuing to grow, food production must increase.

Enter the agBOT Challenge, mixing technological efforts in software, robotics and communication to address agriculture’s current and future obstacles. Some of the specific efforts focus on increased internet efficiency in rural areas and use of unmanned equipment to do daily tasks such as seeding, harvesting, watering, etc.

All of this is also planned to be more eco-friendly by reducing carbon emissions and erosion as well as limiting chemical and fossil fuel usage.

For the 2017 Challenge, agBOT teams compete in different categories to come up with technology specifically for seeding/planting and weeding/feeding. The first place winners of the 2016 Challenge came from Saskatchewan, Canada’s University of Regina with an autonomous tractor. The tractor successfully planted several rows of seeds without human control of any kind and with an accuracy that surprised all in attendance.

This competition is not the first attempt at utilizing robotics and more advanced technology. Twin Brook Creamery has used a robotic milking system on their dairy farm for years.

Many fear that as a result of this, there will be a diminishing need for human labor that could lead to fewer agricultural jobs. In impoverished areas, however, these technologies would more beneficially function in assistance with human activity to maintain and direct robotic technology, doubling as a path for increased food production in hunger-stricken areas as well as a means for areas with less technological innovations to catch up to the rest of the world.

In the United States, agricultural jobs are already on the decline even without robotic replacement, as higher and higher numbers seek white-collar employment. Robots may then become a necessity to fill the void in developed nations left by diminishing agricultural workers.

The agBOT technology is the future of farming and will only continue to grow more efficient with each passing year. The benefits that agBOTs could provide to the worlds’ hungry may be a fundamental step in eradicating world hunger.

– Aaron Walsh

Photo: Flickr

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The Rise of Online Education in Developing Countries

Online Education in Developing Countries
In 2012, Battushig Myanganbayar, a boy from a Mongolian village, became one of only 340 students out of 150,000 to earn a perfect score in an MIT Circuits and Electronics class. That class was the first Massive Open Online Course — a free mode of accessible international online education offered at MIT.

Stories like Myanganbayar’s are certainly inspiring, but access to online education in developing countries isn’t the norm. Most MOOC users are educated, wealthy and employed. However, MOOCs present incredible opportunities to students around the globe. Consequently, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and EducationUSA have taken the initiative to raise awareness about and increase access to MOOCs and online education in developing countries.

USAID partnered with Coursetalk in 2014 for the Advancing MOOCs for Development Initiative (AMDI) to raise awareness about MOOC opportunities in populations that could benefit from them the most, such as unemployed and uneducated women. Through establishing relationships with NGO, college, university, business or foundation communities, USAID will work toward increasing enrollment in MOOCs in developing countries.

The Technology and Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the University of Washington’s Information School and nonprofit development organization IREX are also involved in the initiative to help conduct research in Columbia, the Philippines and South Africa.

Another organization called EducationUSA — a network of student advising centers to support higher education around the world — is bringing educational opportunities into the classrooms of students who wouldn’t have access to them otherwise. Through the support of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, EducationUSA has hosted impactful MOOC camps hosted by Fulbright alumni and U.S. embassy staff. MOOC camps are free, open to the public and occur in more than 60 countries.

MOOCs have pros and cons. The largest complaint about MOOCs is that it could be considered “cultural imperialism” that stunts the growth of a country’s organic progress. Some argue that bringing elite education from the developed world offers a short-term solution to a select group of people in the developing world. As a result, MOOCs inhibit the progress of the long-term goal to improve a country’s education system.

Despite the obvious downsides to MOOCs, one might consider them a temporary necessary evil. One key example where this is true is Kepler University in Rwanda that combines online learning with in-person seminars. Eventually, graduates from Kepler will go on to be the well-prepared educators for the next generation as well as innovators and politicians who are integral to the development of Rwanda.

In support of online education in developing countries, Bill Gates has said that he believes in a “future in which world-class education is only a few taps away for anyone in the world.” With the rapid growth of MOOCs and the support they are receiving from U.S. foreign aid programs, it looks like the future is now.

– Sabrina Yates

Photo: Flickr

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Cristiano Ronaldo’s Selfie App to Help Save the Children

Cristiano Ronaldo's Selfie App
Cristiano Ronaldo, Real Madrid’s star forward and Global Artist Ambassador for Save the Children, recently released his latest initiative for the organization, the CR7Selfie: Fans with a Cause app.

According to Save the Children’s website, Cristiano Ronaldo’s selfie app costs $1.99 and will allow fans to “take a selfie with Ronaldo in one of several different outfits and poses.” A portion of all money raised from the app, which can be downloaded from the Apple App and Google Play stores, will go toward the non-profit organization.

Save the Children, which was founded in 1932, focuses on providing children in 120 countries around the world with proper education, food and health services, especially in the wake of natural disasters or war. In 2015, Save the Children delivered health care to 22.6 million children, and 11.6 million children participated in the organization’s nutrition programs.

Ronaldo has represented Save the Children as an ambassador since January 2013, directing his attention to the worldwide issue of child hunger. The athlete first realized that he wanted to join the fight against poverty when he learned that one in seven children go to bed hungry every night.

Over the past few years, it has become common for advocates to utilize social media. More than 230 million people follow Ronaldo on his various accounts, which allows Save the Children’s message to spread quickly. Cristiano Ronaldo’s selfie app — The CR7Selfie: Fans with a Cause app — puts this same strategy to use, allowing users to have fun sharing their selfies with the superstar while also supporting the organization’s mission.

Ronaldo is one of the most admired athletes on the planet, making him an expert when it comes to taking selfies. During the premiere of his documentary Ronaldo, he even tried to break the world record for most selfies taken in three minutes. Ultimately, Ronaldo failed in this endeavor, but his widespread popularity could make the new app a huge success.

– Liam Travers

Photo: Flickr

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Find the Good, Tell the People

Find the Good, Tell the People
First person to create a Snapchat story inside The White House. Professional at sixteen. Good News Storyteller. Find the good, tell the people.

These are just a few ways of describing the positive power that is Branden Harvey, a twenty-something-year-old from the Northwest on a mission to find the good in the world and tell it to anyone who will listen. There are plenty of devastating facts and statistics that have their place and often inspire people to action, but what effect, Harvey wondered, will the good news have?

In an interview by Isabel Thottam of Moment, Harvey begged the question, “What if we just didn’t say bad things? What if we went out and created things in the world that are only filled with good?”

This talented, driven professional has worked with some of the biggest names in the industry: Disney, Skype, Paramount, Sony and more. He learned from some of the greatest photographers and turned this passion into his main source of income.

But somewhere along the way, passion started to fade. He realized what was missing when he discovered his desire to be a storyteller. Through a podcast, weekly newsletter, Instagram, Snapchat and global travel, Harvey is accomplishing what he set out to do: find the good, tell the people.

Harvey’s travel has taken him to Africa several times, and here he has worked with a non-profit called These Numbers Have Faces. This organization believes “educated, empowered, and community driven young people are the best vehicles for social change.” They pay for the brightest students of Africa to attend university on the condition that they will stay on the continent after receiving their education.

Harvey told Mashable in an interview that he is thankful for the CEO of These Numbers Have Faces, Justin Zoradi, because “he doesn’t see Africa as full of problems, but full of potential.”

Harvey’s desire to find potential instead of problems is manifested in his weekly newsletter. He works to deliver five relevant pieces of news in the midst of seemingly hopeless situations such as natural disasters and this presidential election.

Tapping even further into his storyteller roots, “Sounds Good with Branden Harvey” is a weekly podcast where Harvey sits down with some of the happiest people in the world to discover “what makes them tick” and where they find the good amongst the bad.

Harvey recently interviewed award-winning Australian photographer Nirrimi Firebrace, conversing about what it means to remain honest while searching for the positive. Firebrace explained that vulnerability in her work has been met with a lot of hate. The good news, though, is that the people who appreciate her genuineness only lean in closer to keep hearing the narratives she has to tell.

In writing his own narrative and traveling to Rwanda, Uganda, the Philippines and beyond, Harvey has seen plenty of the bad. He told Moment when discussing the people he met who had been pushed into crime and women who had lost their children, “these are all terrible situations, yet I see good come from them. Good comes from people who rise out of poverty.”

Harvey connects with the people he meets in these countries by learning their language, pulling out his phone before his camera and only going where he is invited. All of these together allow him to connect with the people he meets and tell their stories from an honest and engaging perspective. He says, “I won’t share a photo if I don’t know their name because I’d be taking from them without knowing anything about them. It’s about adding value.”

Harvey urges those with an eye for the good news to share what they see with others. People are searching for it, explicitly or not, and if we focus on the good, consider how much more there could be. “For the people who can see that, pay attention and share that in a way that feels creative and compelling to you.”

Branden Harvey is working hard to find what is good and shout it from the rooftops. And some of the best news? The world is listening.

– Rebecca Causey

Photo: Flickr

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Evaptainer: How the Science of Sweating Can Increase Food Security

Evaptainer: How the Science of Sweating Can Increase Food SecurityThe founders of Evaptainers have harnessed the science of sweating into a device that could help the 7 million people in the world who have no access to refrigeration. While the typical fridge requires electricity for vapor compression refrigeration, the Evaptainer uses evaporative cooling to keep food cold and extend its shelf life without any electricity.

The Evaptainer brings modern-day technology to an idea that has been around for several millennia. At its most basic level, a refrigerating device that uses evaporative cooling contains an inner chamber that holds food. The outer chamber contains an evaporative medium, such as sand, between the outer and inner containers. Water is poured over the evaporative medium, which cools as it evaporates.

The science is simple. To evaporate, water must absorb heat energy from the environment in order to become hot enough to change its state, either from solid to liquid or liquid to gas. The heat the water draws from its environment, called latent heat, cools the environment from which it draws heat.

In the case of the Evaptainer, this process cools the inner container that holds the food. Evaptainers can cool the 60-liter inner container by up to 35 degrees Fahrenheit, extending the shelf-life of food from around two days to two weeks, in hot weather.

Bishop Sanyal, a MIT professor not affiliated with Evaptainer, told MIT Technology Review that Evaptainers could help increase food security. However, he sees the $25 unit price as posing a possible problem for families’ ability to access the devices. For example, the average family in Morocco makes $60-$100 per month as explained by Sanyal, so paying $25 upfront could be a challenge. Nonetheless, if families are able to make the investment, having an Evaptainer could save them money in the long run.

Another challenge Evaptainer faces is that humid air can evaporate less moisture than dry air. As a result, in past 40 percent humidity, the device cools significantly less than it would in its optimal environment of 30 percent humidity or less.

For now, at least in optimal environments, Evaptainers have the potential to improve the quality of life of those who have no access to electricity or refrigeration and reduce the amount of spoiled food waste. According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, such progress represents about $310 billion annually in developing countries alone.

– Laura Isaza

Photo: Flickr

Clean Lahore: New App Dealing with Disease Outbreak

Clean Lahore
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne illness that causes sudden fever and acute pain in the joints. This illness is prevalent in many places throughout the world, including Lahore, Pakistan. In recent years, a new technology known as the Clean Lahore app has been designed to prevent the disease.

In 2011, there was an outbreak of dengue fever during which 20,000 citizens in the Punjab region of Pakistan were affected. Pakistani government officials were looking for a way to slow the spread of the disease. Created and developed by Umar Saif, Clean Lahore allows officials to track efforts taken to prevent the spread of the fever. This new app allows an investigator to photo-log crews of sanitation workers as they complete their jobs. More specifically, the app logs workers as they clear out pools of standing water, which act as breeding grounds for the mosquitoes that carry the illness.

Saif used his app to then map out locations of both sick people and mosquito larvae while making sure workers were doing their jobs to the fullest. This allows officials to develop preventative measures and communicate with workers about what they need to do on their part. Government officials implemented the app post the 2011 outbreak. By 2013, results proved the positive effect of the app. Compared to the 2011 outbreak, in 2013 only a few dozen cases of dengue fever were recorded.

Investigators learned that many workers were unaware of their impact on stopping an outbreak from occurring: “Whatever I do, it’s just to provide for my kids,” one 30-year-old worker stated. By making the worker aware of his impact, he can change how he handles operations in his job.

Dengue fever is found all over the world including Africa, Central and South America and the Caribbean. This new technology can be used to help government officials stop the spread. Progress against dengue fever, in addition to aid from the Clean Lahore app, paves the way to eventually stop the spread of countless diseases in Punjab as well as other regions.

– Casey Marx

Photo: Flickr

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Smart Vision Labs: The Affordable and Accessible Option for Eye Exams

Smart Vision LabsMore than 750 million people currently suffer from uncorrected refractive errors or vision, which can result in blindness and mean hundreds of billions of dollars lost in productivity.

However, correcting vision traditionally requires expensive eye exam machines that can cost up to $40,000. Thanks to the new startup Smart Vision Labs, there is now a cheaper, more accessible way to receive eye exams.

After winning a New York University entrepreneurship competition in 2013, Smart Vision Labs entered the market with its smartphone paired autorefractor, the SVOne.

Founded by Marc Albanese and Yaopeng Zhou, the SVOne, which includes a paired iPhone 5s, costs $3,950, a 90 percent markdown from traditional autorefractors.

By simply pointing the iPhone at the customer’s eyes for five seconds, the machine can quickly measure and produce the information for a prescription. The SVOne also uses wavefront aberrometry, a technology superior to existing autorefractors.

Since raising $6.1 million in an accelerator program, Smart Vision Labs and the SVOne have spread to more than 300 eye clinics across the U.S. and to 23 countries. In 2015, Smart Vision Labs traveled to Haiti to check the eyes of locals, working with the pro-bono doctors of the Volunteer Optometric Services to Humanity.

Not only is the SVOne technology much cheaper, but it is also portable, a huge plus for doctors working in areas without robust health systems or other infrastructure.

In the U.S., the company also has major market potential — more than two-thirds of Americans require prescriptions, but only half receive them. With a service so fast and cheap, Smart Vision Labs can provide vision services to both the impoverished and modern world.

What began as a two-person operation has now jumped to 16 people. They have recently begun operating in several commercial vision stores in New York and have completed more than 40,000 eye scans. With more traction and attention, the company may soon have a worldwide name in doing social good and making profits.

– Henry Gao

Photo: Flickr