Apple watch adds medical insights
Apple continues its pursuit of healthcare through it primary wellness device, the Apple Watch. The company announced a number of wellness feature enhancements this week, but one, in particular, seems designed to serve the medical, not consumer, community. The device’s abilities to measure gait, heart rate and mobility enable it to form an activity index that could help doctors measure overall health or decline over a period of time. CNBC
dis-rup-shun: The fact that these features are designed to appeal to medical professionals, not just consumers, is likely a sign that the company’s tight partnership with care professionals is resulting in marketing to the medical community. Of course, equipping the medical community with unique tools leads to doctors, therapists and clinicians urging seniors, in particular, to purchase these devices to track long-term health, promoting the device as a leader in wellness tracking and driving it to become a standard among the growing senior population.
Omnicom division joins boycott of Facebook ads
Facebook continues to be embroiled in controversy, this time due to its unwillingness to curtail what the group calls “irresponsible propagation of hate speech, racism, and misleading voter information,” according to Omnicom ad adency Goodby Silverstein. The agency represents brands including BMW, PayPal and Pepsi. CNBC.
dis-rup-shun: Facebook, the platform that people love to hate, along with other social media platforms, faces increased pressure to draw a tighter line on what it allows to be posted. Is this censure-ship, or just the right thing to do? Should social media platforms be a platform for freedom of speech — all speech, right or wrong, or should they be the new newspapers, all known for their editorial decisions and inherent bias? The social networks are at a junction, and the public has essentially dictated that they will be the new newspapers, requiring them to choose their editorial bias, which will guarantee that whatever position they choose will enrage some segment of the public that believes use of social networks is a “right,” not a privilege.
Wyze continues to rock the camera world
Wyze has introduced a $50 no-wires outdoor camera. The camera communicates wirelessly to a base station which connects to your router via ethernet or WiFi. Cloud storage of video is free. TechCrunch
dis-rup-shun: Remember Datsun or the first Hondas? These were very inexpensive newcomers to the auto world that were initially mocked, but, a decade or two later, taken very seriously, especially as they later built premium brands such as Infinity and Acura. Wyze feels similar in that they have rocked the smart home gadget market with high quality products at ridiculous prices, and have continued to introduce quality products at gradually higher prices. Expect Wyze to be swallowed by a Big Tech player. I will cast my vote for Google Nest.
8 best smart speakers for Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant
Wired provides another look at smart speakers. This review assumes that the reader can choose a preferred smart assistant technology — Wired prefers Alexa or Google Assistant. The review then crowns winners by category: Best Overall – Sonos, Best for Alexa — Echo, Best Portable — JBL Link, Best Soundbar — Yamaha, and so forth.
dis-rup-shun: In the past few years, several product categories have collided into one: bookshelf speakers, portable speakers, and smart assistants. It is increasingly difficult to separate these products into those categories, but rather call them one and designate, as Wired has done, the best for a particular application. Whatever you call them, chances are that several of these devices exist in each home and that one of them is your primary source of music.