2023 Health Technology Advances – Spotlight #449
News

Good Monday Morning

It’s January 30th. Microsoft reported lower quarterly income and only slightly higher revenue last week, a decidedly mixed bag for Wall Street. Facebook is up on Wednesday afternoon followed by Amazon, Google, and Apple on Thursday.

Today’s Spotlight is 903 words — about 4 minutes to read.

Spotlight On …  2023 Health Technology

Personalized medicine is being driven by advances in 2023 health technology, such as miniature medical devices and machine learning algorithms.

We’ll see more medical care delivered at home and at work with wearables and portable devices, beyond the already exciting advances in heart rate monitoring and fall detection.

Home Urinalysis & Defibrillators

Starling and Withings are about to release devices to help physicians monitor patients with diabetes, kidney disease, or urinary tract infections. TechCrunch reported that Starling’s CEO estimates the annual market for urinalysis is $4.9 billion, and that doesn’t include lost patient time for driving to facilities. In a lifetime, 50-60% of women will suffer a UTI, with 0.5 UTIs per person per year.

French company Lifeaz has created a $1,000 defibrillator device intended for home use. The unit provides vocal instructions, increasing the likelihood that medical help will be provided quickly and effectively. According to the American Heart Association, the average survival rate for sudden cardiac arrest victims in the United States is only 7%. NIH says that more units can save thousands of lives each year.

Prime Telehealth

Amazon’s retailing expertise will disrupt local pharmacies and clinics in 2023. Health care has long been an Amazon focus. One estimate suggests that Amazon’s health care segment could create $9.66 billion in revenue by 2027.

A new Amazon Clinic service launched two months ago in 32 states. This gives Amazon access to a wide range of customers, who can now access health care services without having to leave their homes. Physicians working for Amazon will treat 20 everyday medical issues remotely, including birth control, GERD, motion sickness, allergies, and UTIs.

Another new Amazon service, RxPass, offers Prime members discounts on generic medications. Pricing for the generic versions of well known medications is $5 per month and no shipping fee plus the cost of generics that often range from only a couple of dollars to $15 or $20.

Your Phone Becomes A Tool

Future advances in 2023 health technology include using a smartphone to guide ultrasounds with a gel dispenser hidden inside a smartphone attachment. ECG algorithms are being tested at the Mayo Clinic for widespread atrial fibrillation screening. Mayo is also improving detection models for abnormalities that can be detected by machines during eye exams and ultrasounds.

3 More Stories to Know

1)  The Justice Department and eight states filed a lawsuit alleging that Google is abusing its position as a monopoly in the advertising technology industry. The suit seeks that Google divest itself of some ad tracking technologies. The U.S. government has sued Google over its business practices five times in three years.  

2) LastPass has acknowledged that hackers now possess encrypted backups of customer login credentials. The company has had a number of past issues including a hacking incident in 2015 and vulnerabilities discovered in 2016, 2017, and 2019. A few weeks ago, we wrote extensively about the troubled service.

3)  The developers of an AI-powered traffic court adviser shut down a test after multiple state bar officials threatened legal sanctions. DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder planned to have the service used in a California traffic court, but was threatened with possible prosecution for various misdemeanors including unauthorized practice of law.

Trends & Spends

Did That Really Happen? — Wyoming Will Not Ban Electric Vehicles (But Tried)

State legislators sometimes propose wacky laws. That happened when a group of Wyoming legislators introduced a bill this month to ban the sale of electric vehicles starting in 2035. The bill failed and is not law. 

Following Up — Madison Square Garden Doubles Down on Facial Recognition

We told you last week about abuses in facial recognition. One petty case included MSG-owned Radio City Music Hall identifying a mother accompanying a Girl Scout field trip who also works at a law firm suing the company. The mother was blocked from attending the show, eliciting threats of another suit and a pledge by state officials to investigate the company’s liquor license. 

Now MSG’s mercurial owner James Dolan is threatening to voluntarily ban beer sales and refer angry patrons to the state official’s contact info. 

Protip — Stop Those Formatting Issues!

If you write on an electronic device, you must read every word of “Tab Is Not Indent...”

Screening Room — Panera’s Dough Nations <3

Science Fiction World — Robot Liquifies and (Yes, Like Terminator…)

It’s called Magnetoactive liquid-solid phase transitional matter. 

Go ahead and call it T-2. It’s so cool. 

Coffee Break —  Wonders of Street View

Creative coder Neal Agarwal is back with another brilliant project. He may hold the record for the most Coffee Break features ever. This time you can visit random Wonders of Street View, that amazing Google Maps feature. 

Sign of the Times

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Facial Recognition Abuse – Spotlight #448
Articles

Good Monday Morning

It’s January 23rd. Friday is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Spotlight On … Facial Recognition Abuse

Several alarming incidents related to facial recognition abuse threaten the promising progress being made in machine learning and image recognition. In two cases, police requested arrest warrants based on image matches that caused mistaken arrests. In another, a woman was barred from entering a theater based on where she worked.

Jailed for Days Despite Never Have Been There

Though the software works largely as intended, police in Louisiana and Texas have improperly used matching records to seek arrest warrants. When she learned there was an arrest warrant for her, doctoral student Julie Hudson visited a Philadelphia police station to solve the problem. She was arrested and held for six days. A Texas police detective investigating a shoplifting used facial recognition software to match her face to social media images even though she had never been to Texas.

Weeks earlier, Randall Reid, 28, was arrested in Georgia for stealing luxury purses from two New Orleans suburbs despite having never been to Louisiana. As Reid’s appearance was distinctly different, including a visible mole and substantial weight difference, observers questioned how the mistake could have occurred, yet Reid was jailed for days.

Wrongly arrested people can suffer serious legal consequences due to mistaken identity. Those problems aren’t limited to technology, but facial recognition abuse by police has ugly ramifications. For example, Reid and Hudson must now both acknowledge on job and credit applications that they have been arrested. Expunging arrest records can be time-consuming and expensive.

Removed From a Holiday Show

New Jersey mother Kelly Conlon is also a victim of facial recognition abuse. While accompanying her daughter’s Girl Scout troop to a Radio City Music Hall holiday show, Conlon was removed from the theater because the law firm where she works is involved in a lawsuit against an affiliated restaurant. She was not involved in the litigation personally or professionally. In a statement, Madison Square Garden, which owns Radio City Music Hall, said that attorneys in litigation against the company are not allowed to attend events at any MSG venues.

That rule may have triggered even more legal action. An attorney at the firm where she works is now challenging MSG’s liquor license.

3 More Stories to Know

1)  T-Mobile customers still have until later today to file claims for $25 ($100 in California) due to a 2021 data breach. The timing is mind-blowing since T-Mobile announced a new breach affecting 37 million customers last Thursday. 

2) After announcing 10,000 job cuts last November, Amazon will lay off an additional 8,000 employees. Also being eliminated is Amazon Smile’s charity rebate program, which provided hundreds of millions of dollars to charities over ten years. That program ends on February 20.

3) Microsoft engineers published a paper earlier this month that claims software they’ve developed uses machine learning to generate a computer sound-alike from only three seconds of audio.

Trends & Spends

Did That Really Happen? — Yes, A Child Themed Rifle Was Introduced Last Year

Social media buzzed last week with news about a rifle made for children. There are 1,000 American children shot every year, but gun maker Wee1 Tactical has developed a rifle for children that looks like an AR-15 semi-automatic weapon. The rifle’s marketing introduction featured babies, children, and pacifiers in its design. Snopes documents its timeline.

Following Up — CNET Publishing Automated Articles

In another twist on abusing new technology, CNET has begun using unspecified AI software to write non-bylined articles. Futurism elaborates on the factual errors that have been published.

Protip — Find Hidden Cameras With Your Phone

Your phone can detect the infrared light used by many hidden cameras that your eyes can’t detect. The Verge shows you how and also writes about software that will help detect sneaky cameras.

Screening Room – Apple

Science Fiction World — Bird Bots 

Robotics takes a giant flap forward with new winged models that can autonomously land on a perch using a claw like attachment. That engineering trick hadn’t been mastered until last month’s announcement and video from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

Coffee Break —  And Still More Birds

The My Bird Buddy smart birdfeeder includes a camera that identifies and records the birds visiting your backyard. It comes with notifications to your phone to alert you when that extra-special avian shows up. There’s no word on whether it does the same for squirrels.

Sign of The Times

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Articles

Website Content:  Establishing Expertise and Building Trust

By the year 2019, you knew you needed a good website to reach more customers. The day-to-day workload of entrepreneurs, founders, and other business leaders often put the maintenance of those websites on the back burner.

Then 2020 arrived and everything changed overnight. Those languishing websites turned into the lifelines that would determine if your business survived. After the mad scramble to update and inform and pivot to virtual everything, a new reality dawned.

Business websites were the main avenue of communication with customers and investors.

The pandemic showed everyone from Mom & Pop stores to multi-national corporations the truth that content writers have known for years:

Your website should establish your expertise and connect you to your visitors.

It should turn clicks into visitors, turn visitors into customers, and nurture those customers until they become loyal brand ambassadors. That seems like a lot to ask from some words on a web page, but never underestimate the power of good content.

Copy and Content

Your website needs short, catchy copy that grabs the attention of a visitor. That copy walks the fine line of being both accessible and professional. It tells your visitors that they are welcome in this space where you are an expert.

Your site also needs content—the descriptions, articles, videos, and pictures that turn visitors into customers learning about the solutions you offer. Today we’re going to talk about the written content that guides visitors through your site and provides them a reason to return.

The first piece of content I ever wrote was a movie review in 2002. In the twenty years since, I’ve written everything from blog posts to product descriptions and homepages to social media posts. I’ve learned a lot about optimizing content along the way.

The Value of Content

As the saying goes, content is king, and that’s as true today as it was when I first heard it in the early 2000s. From 100-word SEO-optimized product descriptions to long-form articles about your industry, you have opportunities all over your website to connect with your customers.

Content offers your visitors something of value for their time. Ideas for their own businesses, an engaging look behind the scenes at your business, or a new way to look at problems and solutions.

Your goal is two-fold: establish expertise in your area of business and build trust with visitors. Your company is not built on clicks or site traffic, it’s built on conversions. Chasing the former does not guarantee the latter. You need to give your visitors a reason to stick around.

Establishing Expertise

Every paragraph on your site helps you establish expertise in your industry. From homepage sections identifying pain points and offering solutions to articles discussing current trends—all show that you’re knowledgeable and invested.

The tricky part of establishing industry expertise, or thought leadership, is remaining accessible. I had professors in college who had obviously forgotten what it was like to not be an expert. They talked over our heads and down to us at the same time.

Don’t be one of those professors.

Your content should meet people where they are. Offer tips and hints for industry newcomers in one article and do a deep dive into an esoteric topic in the next. Just make sure to clearly identify your audience.

You know what it’s like to be the newbie, and how easy it is to click away from something you don’t understand. Welcoming newcomers into your world is one of the most powerful ways to turn a casual visitor into a loyal brand ambassador.

Expertise and leadership also involve opinion. Let your customers know where you stand on important issues in your industry. Leaders don’t just provide information, they interpret it. Use your expertise to wade through topical issues and don’t be afraid to take a side.

What you’re reading right now is opinion. My thoughts on a topic based on my years of experience writing content.

You don’t need to share your opinion on every topic. I’ve seen companies stray into politics and it’s a gamble. Choose your opinion pieces outside of your industry very carefully. Remember that you’re building a community.   

Building Trust

People argue that trust is built on what you do, not what you say. They have a point. But we’re living in a world where we may never connect in person with our customers or colleagues. Content provides a bridge between our real lives and our virtual businesses.

Building trust and loyalty through your website starts with consistency. Make sure your website has current basic information. Add content regularly, answer comments, and respond to emails generated through your contact form.

Show your customers and investors that you’re accessible through your site. You don’t have to do it all yourself. Find someone you trust to answer emails and comments. Make a schedule with your content writers. Be clear in your expectations for customer interactions and content topics.

Using content that’s personal and less focused on your business or industry is a powerful way to build trust and community. I once wrote an article about grief and a listicle about the absurdities of traveling with small children for a site completely unrelated to either topic.

Both pieces resulted in new readers and followers who continued to visit my other content. It can be hard to connect virtually. It’s worth the effort to branch out into topics more universal to the human experience.

Customers and investors who get to know you through your content feel invested in the success of your business.

Pulling It All Together

In the two decades that I’ve been writing web content, the world has changed in extraordinary ways. What hasn’t changed is the power of the written word to inspire, unite, and build communities.

Use that power on your website. Make your visitors feel welcome and reassure them with your expertise. Cultivate connections that build trust. Post content that rewards that trust with something of value. There is no single, perfect way to create or present content on a website. Your website can meet the challenges of a rapidly changing business environment if you invest in content that keeps your customers and investors informed, engaged, and connected.