Glimpses of the Future

Now Trip Advisor Starts Offering Rooms

TripAdvisor has told its members they can now advertise their spare rooms on the site.

In a move that is being interpreted as a bid to take on Airbnb, some members of the TripAdvisor community received an email recently with the headline: “Rent out your space on TripAdvisor”.

“Turn your home, spare room or vacation house into a goldmine,” TripAdvisor said.

“Advertise it for free today and reach millions of paying guests waiting to book.”

The email links out to FlipKey, a vacation rental site owned by TripAdvisor.

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Apple Watch Being Used To Help Cancer Patients

King’s College Hospital in London is piloting a scheme in which cancer patients going through chemotherapy treatments are given an Apple Watch running Medopad’s Apple Watch Chemotherapy app.

Users will get subtle on-wrist reminders of which medication to take using the Watch’s Taptic Engine and they can submit symptoms and their temperature – very important to monitor in cancer patients – to doctors in a couple of taps. Medical staff also have access to data on activity levels captured by the Watch’s accelerometer.

Medopad is a British healthcare company which has been building apps for doctors since the launch of the iPad. Now with the Apple Watch, it is looking to really improve patients’ lives and empower them to get involved in their treatment with tech’s latest toy.

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Superdrug Starts Retailing 23andme DNA Testing Kits

UK High Street chemist Superdrug has begun selling 23andme’s DNA exome analysis kit direct to consumers.

British doctors have criticised Superdrug for making the £124.99 cheek-swab test available to the public. Some doctors claim that ordinary members of the public aren’t equipped to interpret the results.

Questioned about this at a lecture in Oxford recently, Anne Wojcicki, CEO of 23andme, told doctors in the audience that market research clearly indicates that consumers responded responsibility to the DNA results.

The company’s DNA test analyses only 1% of the genome, but this 1% is responsible for 85% of all genetically-related health conditions.

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Children Learn To Write By Teaching Robots

Researchers at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne have developed a new teaching tool called CoWriter based on the pedagogical principle of “learning by teaching.”

When children experience difficulties in writing, they can easily lose confidence, begin to shut down, or even gradually lose interest in the learning process. Eventually, their entire education can be affected.

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Nano-Coating Produces Steel That Is 10x Stronger

An inexpensive new process can increase the strength of metals such as steel by as much as 10 times, and make them much more resistant to corrosion – it is claimed.

If the modified metals pass field testing, the new process could go on to make bridges and other infrastructure last far longer; it could also make cars lighter and therefore more fuel-efficient.

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The 3-D Ultrasound Medical Scanner That Runs On Your Smartphone

Imagine that every doctor’s office – perhaps even every pharmacy – had a low cost imaging device running on a smartphone. The scanner would be able to provide instant, real-time pictures inside damaged limbs and inside other parts of the body, significantly reducing the time taken for diagnosis. No referrals, no hospital visits and faster treatments. Read More