Pria pill dispenser and communications station from Black & Decker
The familiar trusted household appliance brand has launched Pria, a tabletop medication manager and communications station that is part Echo Show, and part automated pill dispenser. Loaded with daily medications in a cartridge, the device reminds people that it is time to take a medication, and communicates with care givers through apps — notifying others if grandmother has not checked in, has not taken medicines, or has indicated that she does not feel well. Okpria.com
dis-rup-shun: Leveraging technology to increase care is a giant business that has really not yet begun. The economic pressures to provide more care for less, especially remotely, are enormous. Even CMS, the body governing medicare reimbursements, is warming up to paying for remote care. Connected health is a technology market opportunity that is, well, “huge.”
France says no way to Facebook’s Libra currency
Facebook continues to face opposition in Europe, with France taking the lead at pushing back on U.S. Big Tech. Facebook’s Libra private currency, an association of many companies, plans to be based in Switzerland. France’s finance minister, with the support of the president of the European Central Bank, said Libra will not be developed on European soil. CNBC
dis-rup-shun: Libra is ambitious, and the implications of an alternative currency supported by giants such as Facebook, Pay Pal, Visa and Mastercard is intimidating to central banks of any country, especially while those countries are simultaneously struggling to find the right level of regulation for Big Tech. Expect Big Tech to be locked, continuously, into complicated political wrangling with world government regulators from here on.
iPhone 11 camera features are giant leap, says analyst
This week’s Apple product announcement had no surprises, and most have lamented the lack of earth shaking news. Analyst Shelly Palmer broke from the pack by stating that Apple’s computational imaging — using software to coordinate images taken simultaneously through different lenses — will forever change journalism. iPhone 11’s lenses can record both audience and performer at the same time, and enable users to edit multiple images at once, turning amateurs into multi-channel video editors.
dis-rup-shun: The still image photography from the Samsung Galaxy S10 is shockingly great. With innovation by Apple and Samsung in smartphone cameras outpacing that of Canon and Nikon, we can expect more professionals to use smart phones for their trade and the prosumer category will continue to crowd out the professional photography segment. Camera lens improvements will be only incremental, so big innovation in photography will be from controlling multiple lenses with software. It is a tough time to be in the digital SLR camera business. Canon’s profits were down 64% last quarter.
Shelf scanning robots help brick and mortar retailers close data gap
Online retailers enjoy instantaneous data on when and how people shop. Brick and mortar retailers have to follow customers or record movements in stores to gain granular shopping behavior data. New robots that roam aisles, or drones that fly about shelves and use machine vision and RF scanning can close the gap and provide data that store clerks cannot. Bossanova, a maker of stock scanning robots has raised $100 million. Simbe Robotics has raised $26 million.
dis-rup-shun: Robots roaming the aisles in supermarkets, particularly during rush hour, will be annoying. Maybe the robots will also give free samples to increase their popularity among shoppers. The reward to consumers, however, will be to less frequently find an item out of stock, or to have similar items grouped together, once retailers get deeper insight on shopping patterns, resulting in higher revenue per cart or higher revenue per shopping minute. ZDNet