The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) suggests that 85 percent of tasks in an average person’s daily life will include game elements by 2020. Gamification is already being integrated into social media, data collection, the healthcare industry and more. Social media sites including Foursquare, Yelp and Facebook are incorporating game and reward features. For example, they encourage users to check into restaurants by rewarding them with badges and titles, such as “mayor” of a restaurant. Continue reading IEEE Predicts That Our Daily Lives Will Be Gamified by 2020

Considering a mere five percent of U.S. consumers wear activity trackers, will wearables ever cross-over to the mainstream? Even the experts in this field have trouble agreeing. Steven Pierce, of IBM’s global business development, said we’ll have ten devices on our bodies very soon. “Wearables will be the key source of information in five years,” he said, listing implantables and injectables as future wearables. But Sonny Vu, founder of Misfit Wearables, disagreed. “Five years isn’t that far away,” he said. “I don’t think science will advance that fast.” Continue reading Wearables Waiting For a Killer App to Take Them Mainstream

Wearable technology and personal data — rapidly moving beyond early-adopter status to play an increasingly important role in the marketplace — is a major trend we’ll be examining at CES. The skyrocketing popularity of wearables is no surprise; at last year’s show, Digital Health and Fitness emerged as the second most-talked about topic behind only Ultra HDTV. ABI Research predicts 169.5 million wearable health and fitness devices will be on the market by 2017. Continue reading CES 2014: Wearable Devices and Technologies Gain Prominence

The launch of new magazine-style content channels is another step by LinkedIn toward becoming an online media entity with a focus on business news. The social network revamped its LinkedIn Today offering yesterday with a simpler design, the introduction of 20 channels (or categories) of news, multiple options for sorting content, and revised email digests. Users can subscribe to channels and authors who are part of the Influencer program. Continue reading Revamped LinkedIn Today Features New Content Channels

At the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington, DC, doctors are taking a new approach to pain therapy. Patients are encouraged to be active through the use of interactive video gaming consoles such as the Xbox 360. This new type of therapy allows doctors to track data and progress of patients, while the children are physically and mentally stimulated in order to improve their health. Continue reading Gaming Takes Physical Therapy Program to the Next Level

Microsoft is introducing a company-funded incubator program in China for outside developers to build projects based on its popular Kinect technology, hoping to fuel innovation beyond gaming and into industries like healthcare and retail. Last year in Seattle, Microsoft gave select startups $20,000 each to create software, of which it requires no ownership stakes or intellectual property rights and has no veto power. Continue reading Microsoft Pays Startups to Create Software Using Kinect

Watson — the computer running IBM’s artificial intelligence technology, famous for beating “Jeopardy” champions two years ago — will soon enter the kitchen in an attempt by the company to turn Watson into a commercially viable product. And it’s not only cooking; IBM is showcasing various uses for the technology, such as developing drugs and predicting when industrial machines need maintenance. Continue reading Watson Takes to the Kitchen: First Step Toward Big Data?

A wide array of health-related devices and apps made a significant splash at CES last week. In the wake of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ report on leading health industry issues, which highlights establishment of the Affordable Care Act and the growing influence of the consumer, GigaOM discusses the boom in digital health with PwC’s Global Healthcare Innovation Leader Chris Wasden. Continue reading Healthcare Is Going Digital in 2013: Critical Year Ahead

Health professionals gathered Thursday for a panel at the Digital Health Summit to talk about “Why Healthcare Has Its Head in the Cloud.” Unlike many other industries that have been quick to adopt cloud connectivity, the health industry has noticeably lagged, said Don Jones, from Qualcomm Life who moderated the discussion. Panelists discussed the benefits of accumulating data in the cloud for more in-depth analysis and expanding preventative potential. Continue reading CES 2013: Healthcare Professionals Won Over By the Cloud

Healthcare is too expensive, stress is killing us and technology enables us to take better care of ourselves were the general themes of the CES Supersession “The Digital Health Revolution: Body, Mind and Soul.” Moderated by Arianna Huffington and anchored by Dr. Deepak Chopra, the panel included David Daly, CEO of Life Technologies; Sonny Vu, CEO of Misfit Wearables; and Dr. Reed Tuckson, executive VP and chief of medical affairs at UnitedHealth Group. Continue reading CES 2013: Technology Poised to Revolutionize Healthcare