An app to check your cholesterol is the latest way smartphones are evolving into medical devices

On mobile phones, health, and fitness are rapidly becoming big business. The latest idea? A concept from researchers at Cornell which demonstrates how your phone could be used to check your cholesterol levels, no visit to the lab required. In a paper published in the medical technology journal Lab on a Chip, the researchers describe a simple test strip that users drop a bit of blood on. You then snap a photo of this strip (using a special flash diffuser to correct for light levels) and use an app to analyze the results. Because blood changes colors ever so slightly based on the amount of cholesterol in it, the app can determine your cholesterol level through a simple image analysis of the picture of the test strip. That's good news, since Yahoo! reports that up to 60 percent of American adults suffer from high cholesterol. Presumably a good portion of them aren't even aware of it and don't want to undertake the hassle of a doctor visit. As Bloomberg Businessweek notes in the above story, cholesterol testing is hardly the first example of a medical or health-related technology being developed into app form. Today's app-based heart rate monitors make old-fashioned finger clips look like medieval gear, and you can now download an app that diagnoses what's wrong with your sleep patterns. Expectant mothers can get a daily report on their fetus's development, and that's not even mentioning the scads of apps that let you manage your workout and diet routines. Medical related... Continue reading at 'PC World'

[ PC World | 2013-12-21 00:00:00 UTC ]

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Anomaly Productions Releases 'Shifter' Book App

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-30 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Scribd Offers Kindle Fire App, iOS, Android Updates

The recently launched Scribd subscription ebook service is adding an app for the Kindle Fire tablet as well as providing updates to its iOS and Android apps. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-29 00:00:00 UTC ]
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How we made the Uneditions web app

Unlimited Theatre's Jon Spooner reveals the co-creation behind a new platform for publishing play scripts on mobile devicesUnlimited Theatre has often worked with new technologies, mainly due to the fact that I've had a geeky interest in things ever since I was bought a Dragon 32 home computer... Continue reading at The Guardian

[ The Guardian | 2014-01-24 00:00:00 UTC ]
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This Week in Children's Apps: January 16, 2014

This week in children's apps, we feature apps that take players on journeys with familiar faces – the Berenstain Bears hit the road, the Cat in the Hat explores the rainforest, and Curious George makes his way through the alphabet. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-16 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Evolve Media Hires Geoff Schiller Away from Hearst

Publisher of enthusiast consumer content Evolve Media, LLC has lured Geoff Schiller from his position as Hearst Digital Media’s chief sales officer to join the company as chief revenue officer.  Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2014-01-14 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Maverick backs bedtime story app

A new story reading app will launch later this month with nine picture books from publisher... Continue reading at The Bookseller

[ The Bookseller | 2014-01-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Personalised digital magazine app Flipboard aims for 150 million users

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[ The Guardian | 2014-01-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Scientific American Reboots Medical Database

Scientific American has major plans to reconstruct and grow Scientific American Medicine, a comprehensive professional medical database it first published in 1981. Continue reading at Folio Magazine

[ Folio Magazine | 2014-01-09 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Checking Up

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2014-01-03 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Holiday Catalogs Data and Top 15 Cities, Per Popular iPad App

The turn-the-page Web catalog—tested widely in the 2000s as an alternative to e-commerce sites—once looked like an emerging shopping platform led by now-defunct tech providers such as RichFX. But the concept died on the proverbial vine. With the massive proliferation of tablets, however, the... Continue reading at AdWeek

[ AdWeek | 2013-12-20 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Reality Check: Mobile Ads Have a Way to Go

The mobile ad world has become one of haves and have nots. The Wall Street Journal concentrates on the haves, the platforms like Facebook, but the world of publishers isn’t so luckily.The post Reality Check: Mobile Ads Have a Way to Go appeared first on Digiday. Continue reading at Digiday

[ Digiday | 2013-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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The Magazine Medic Honors

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[ Folio Magazine | 2013-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Personalised audio for SourceBooks' Put Me in the Story app

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[ The Bookseller | 2013-12-19 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Stephen Hawking's first official app teaches the basics of the universe

Stephen Hawking has gone to great lengths to promote science through books and videos, but he has been conspicuously absent in the software world -- until now, that is. The astrophysicist has just teamed up with Random House on Snapshots of the ... Continue reading at Engadget

[ Engadget | 2013-12-13 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Apple to give away songs, ebooks, apps during '12 Days of Gifts'

Apple will be giving away digital gifts every day for 12 days after Christmas to users of an app released Tuesday.     Continue reading at Los Angeles Times

[ Los Angeles Times | 2013-12-10 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Checking In on the Digital Royalty Debate

A few years ago, the topic of the digital royalty rate came up at nearly every publishing conference. Continue reading at Publishers Weekly

[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-12-06 00:00:00 UTC ]
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ALA 2014 Preview: Check it out with Michael Kelley: A Deeper Dive

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[ Publishers Weekly | 2013-12-02 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Penguin teams up with Readmill on booksharing app

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[ The Guardian | 2013-11-28 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Google Play update showcases big-screen optimized apps on tablets

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[ Engadget | 2013-11-22 00:00:00 UTC ]
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Former Kate Spade Art Director Develops An Adorbs Book App For Kids

My Monster, by Julianna Goodman, bridges the divide between slick digital storytelling and homemade visuals.It's rare to see and "touch" things on the iPad screen that evoke the texture, color, and unpolished feel of real life. Fortunately, a new children's book app corrects that shortcoming,... Continue reading at Fast Company

[ Fast Company | 2013-11-18 00:00:00 UTC ]
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