Apple’s ResearchKit system is going international for the first time since its launch earlier this year with Stanford University’s MyHeart Counts app being made available for UK and Hong Kong iPhone users. The MyHeart Counts app was among the initial iPhone-based research study apps that debuted this year. Stanford said just after the app’s release that ResearchKit did in 24 hours what would ordinarily take 50 medical centers a year to accomplish. Expand Expanding Close
While health tech has to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the agency will be taking “an almost hands-off approach” to fitness-oriented wearables like the Apple Watch, says policy advisor Bakul Patel in an interview in Bloomberg.
“We are taking a very light touch, an almost hands-off approach,” Patel, the FDA’s associate director for digital health, said in an interview. “If you have technology that’s going to motivate a person to stay healthy, that’s not something we want to be engaged in.”
Patel said the FDA would be drawing a distinction between products whose health claims focused on fitness rather than diagnosis … Expand Expanding Close
Stanford University said that 11,000 iPhone owners signed up for a heart health study using Apple’s newly-announcedResearchKit in the first 24 hours–completely unprecedented numbers.
“To get 10,000 people enrolled in a medical study normally, it would take a year and 50 medical centers around the country,” said Alan Yeung, medical director of Stanford Cardiovascular Health, speaking to Bloomberg.
Stanford is one of five academic centers that have developed apps that use the iPhone’s built-in accelerometers, gyroscopes and GPS to provide data which assists in medical research. There are, say researchers, both pros & cons to recruiting study participants through ResearchKit … Expand Expanding Close
Apple has picked up a few new hires and advisors to assist its growing Watch team ahead of the Apple Watch launch currently on track for March. Among them, Apple has recently hired another executive from the fashion industry, this time from Louis Vuitton, in addition to two new hires from the medical industry. Expand Expanding Close
Early testing of an iPhone app developed to detect melanoma – the most dangerous form of skin cancer – found an accuracy rate of around 85 percent. This is similar to that achieved by specialist dermatologists, and more accurate than examination by primary care physicians.
Melanoma, usually caused by too much exposure to the sun, is responsible for around three-quarters of all skin cancer deaths. It’s dangerous because it can spread quickly if not caught at an early stage, but surgery has a high success rate if the condition is detected and treated soon after symptoms appear … Expand Expanding Close
Researchers at Stanford University’s School of Medicine have developed two low-cost iPhone adapters that provide images of the eye that usually require specialist ophthalmology equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars. The university hopes that it will be useful both for primary care physicians in the U.S. as well as rural medical centres in developing countries.
The adapters make it easy for anyone with minimal training to take a picture of the eye and share it securely with other health practitioners or store it in the patient’s electronic record.
“Think Instagram for the eye,” said one of the developers, assistant professor of ophthalmology Robert Chang, MD … Expand Expanding Close
Apple hired Sally Cole as the Director of Employee Communications last month. Cole comes from cross-town rival Google, where she served as the Director of Internal Communications for almost six years. The Scarsdale native has a B.A. in history from Yale and a J.D./M.B.A. from nearby Stanford University, from which both companies hire liberally.
As someone intimately familiar with Internal Communications at Google, Cole’s experience could prove very valuable at Apple. Apple is rumored to be after Google Maps employees, for instance, where Cole’s Rolodex could prove “fruitful.” Google and Apple previously had a “no-poach” agreement instituted by former Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Clearly, that is no longer the case.
TechCrunch reported that Steve Jobs’ widow, Larene Powell Jobs, would be appointed on Stanford University’s Board of Trustees later this afternoon. Powell Jobs is known for her work in the education field and is a graduate of Stanford University, where she got her MBA in business in 1991.
Stanford is the place where the couple met just after he gave a talk in one of her business classes in 1991. The Jobs’ family has strong ties to the university, which led to Jobs’ famous 2005 Stanford graduation commencement speech, as seen below.
Given Powell Jobs’ work in the education field, it makes sense for her to join the board. She has been involved with College Track, where she serves as the president of the board, and her other education duties include non-profit work like being the founder and chair of Emerson Collective.
Powell Jobs will join the ranks of 32 other board members, which includes Apple’s creator of the retail store and genius bar, Ron Johnson. He recently left Apple in November 2011 to join J.C. Penny as its CEO.
Earlier this week, during a trip to Silicon Valley, Ferrari CEO Luca di Montezemolo gave a speech at Stanford University and met with Apple CEO Tim Cook and “heads of Google” for sit down meetings. The report comes from Ferrari’s website, which claimed Cook and Montezemolo had a “two-hour face-to-face meeting.” There is not much information about what the two chiefs talked about, but Montezemolo said the two companies share a similar passion for design and that he was impressed with Cook’s “availability and openness”:
Passion was also the golden thread at the friendly meeting with Tim Cook: ”I was impressed by his availability and openness,” Montezemolo said leaving the headquarters after a 2-hour face-to-face meeting. “We’re building cars, they build computers. But Apple and Ferrari are connected by the same passion, the same love for the product, maniacal attention to technology, but also to design.”
Tim Cook wanted to see the FF from close up, Montezemolo had used to drive to Cupertino, admiring the shapes and the interior of the 4-door 4×4 from the Prancing Horse, excited about the sound of the 12-cylinder engine. Excitement Ferrari has always been stimulating all over the world and also here in Silicon Valley.
Stanford University’s Silicon Valley Archives currently holds “the largest assembly of Apple historical materials” stored within hundreds of boxes taking up over 600 feet of shelf space in an undisclosed facility outside San Fran.
The Associated Presspublished a story today detailing their recent visit to Stanford’s Apple Collection, which contains in-house video Apple recorded in the 80s, blueprints for early Macs, user manuals, company shirts, and drafts of Steve Jobs’ speeches.
Stanford historian Leslie Berlin had this to say about the collection:
“Through this one collection you can trace out the evolution of the personal computer. These sorts of documents are as close as you get to the unmediated story of what really happened.”
While you may have heard versions of how the name Apple came to be, an interview recorded with Wozniak and Jobs in the 80s (originally meant to be an in-house video for employees) has the two men recalling the exact moment:
Woz: “I remember driving down Highway 85. We’re on the freeway, and Steve mentions, `I’ve got a name: Apple Computer.’ We kept thinking of other alternatives to that name, and we couldn’t think of anything better.”
Jobs: “And also remember that I worked at Atari, and it got us ahead of Atari in the phonebook.”
That video and others were donated to Stanford in 1997 after Jobs returned to the company and plans for an in-house Apple museum were cancelled. Also included in the collection is this “Blue Busters” Ghostbusters-style internal ad featuring Apple executives, embedded below. The ad was originally shown in October 1984 at an international sales meeting in Hawaii. Blue Busters is obviously a not so subtle reference to their biggest competitor at the time, IBM.
