Wednesday, November 20, 2002

PDAs for Disease Management and Prevention This from www.digitaldividend.org   PDAs for Disease Management and Prevention Project Description: SatelLife is investigating the use of PDAs to give rural physicians the ability to access up-to-date information on vital medicines and vaccines, as well as receive input from colleagues, in order to help them prevent and manage the spread of disease in the developing world. Through the PDAs for Disease Management and Prevention project, SatelLife will: 1) create new digital content and customized tools to assist health professionals, 2) test the appropriateness of personal digital assistants (PDAs) among doctors and health workers, 3) make current health content and reference tools available to doctors and health workers and 4) evaluate the impact of this technology among health professionals. SatelLife expects to achieve these results by assembling content on HIV/AIDS for public health workers and doctors in remote aras in Uganda and Kenya and by using PDAs and customized surveys to assess the effectiveness of measles outreach efforts in Ghana. Organization: SATELLIFE Contact Name: Holly Ladd, Executive Director Contact E-mail: hladd@usa.healthnet.org Contact Phone/Fax: 617-926-9400 / 617-926-1212 Mailing Address: 30 California Street, Watertown, MA 02472 USA Project URL: http://pda.healthnet.org/index.html Locations: Africa/Ghana/Accra Africa/Kenya/Nairobi Area/Nairobi Africa/Uganda/Central/Kampala Project Users: Operating Since: Jan 1, 2002 Related Projects: HealthNet SATELLIFE is an international humanitarian organization employing satellite, telephone, and Internet technology to serve the health communication and ...   Activity Type: Handheld Enabled Healthcare Sector: Non-Profit Funding Sources: Philanthropy Affiliated Organizations: Acumen Fund Project Needs: comments? [] 5:47:37 PM     NetVis NetVis Module - Dynamic Visualization of Social Networks   Login   Username           Password Reminder         The NetVis Module is a free open source web-based tool designed to simulate, analyze, and visualize social networks using data from csv files, online surveys, and geographically dispersed work teams. Source Code v1.2 © 2001-2002 Jonathon N. Cummings comments? [] 5:41:49 PM     WiFi awareness enters the next phase: general public awareness. The next phase will be the mania... WiFi awareness enters the next phase:  general public awareness.  The next phase will be the mania... USA Today Discovers WiFi. In various circles lately, I've been hearing questions about whether or not the great, mysterious "general public" knows what WiFi is yet. As more and more retail stores offer up WiFi access (whether for free, or at a price) and more and more news articles appear about the technology, it seems harder and hard to believe that people haven't heard about WiFi at all. The latest is that USA Today has done an article about WiFi. There's nothing new in the article - they talk about Starbucks and even the Schlotzky's Deli story we recently spoke about. They also point out that many places have free WiFi hotspots, which is something that many other major press articles about WiFi seem to downplay. [Techdirt Corporate Intelligence: Techdirt Wireless News] comments? [] 5:28:41 PM     Wi-Fi for handhelds gets a push. Wireless "hot spot" provider Boingo Wireless launches free software designed to make it easier for people with handhelds to use Wi-Fi networks. [Meerkat: An Open Wire Service] comments? [] 5:25:16 PM     Neighborhoods and ecosystems. Stephano Mazzocchi is working on ways to visualize the Apache community and we talked at length about how to capture the raw data.  To me, the problem seems fundamentally equivalent to the one that we have been exploring in blogspace, whereby people are identified as Experts, Mavens, and Connectors.  I demonstrated Mark's newdoor effort, and it became clear that all we needed to bootstrap the data that Stephano wanted was to start encouraging Apache committers to start posting personal web sites with links to people that they are interested in. [Sam Ruby] comments? [] 5:16:10 PM     Fortune mag's take on Wi-Fi in business: A thorough article from Matthew Boyle on how Wi-Fi is already transforming business. The article reflects the kinds of discussions I've had with companies, where they find multiple effects from WLANs: cheaper to install, more flexible to move people around, more productivity in meetings where thngs must happen, more productivity across the day. The other factor they don't mention is that employees may actually have improved happiness: if you can work more effectively during the day, you don't need to work as long (or at least one would hope). That extra 30 minutes of email before you go to bed might be eliminated and replaced with sleep or family time, f'r'instance. [80211b News] comments? [] 5:12:30 PM     Better newer solar Berkeley Labs.  Discovery may yield full spectrum solar cell.  Extremely interesting if it pans out.  Basically, some new work in materials technology for LEDs has led to the development of a low cost compound that works across the full spectrum of visible light.  ~70% efficiency vs. ~15-20% currently.   I did a little work on what it would cost to power my home, and I found that a $14k system would supply about 1/3 of my needs using existing solar cell technology.  If similar price points are in place (based on the size of the panels) with a more efficient system, I could buy a system that supplies all of my needs and provide a recoupment of 100% of the investment in 4 years (and that's in New England!).  [John Robb's Radio Weblog] [Blogging Alone] comments? [] 5:11:16 PM     Speakeasy promotes sharing Speakeasy promotes sharing..   Sharing Is Good. The big national broadband ISPs have very strict policies preventing consumers from setting up servers or sharing internet connections. One ISP that sees this as an opportunity is Speakeasy Networks which actually encourages sharing connections and setting up servers on their DSL network. Of course they do charge a bit more, but they seem to be very market driven by catering to customers who need a little more from the broadband ISP. The big guys could learn something here. Rather than saying no to your customers, figure out how to say yes. [Techdirt Corporate Intelligence: Techdirt Wireless News]   Speakeasy Networks offers its DSL customers Wi-Fi package for explicit sharing (follow link to new customer signup): Speakeasy Networks is offering a free SMC Networks 802.11a or 802.11b access point to new DSL and T-1 subscribers. Speakeasy is a national DSL/digital line provider, which in the spirit of full disclosure is my home and work DSL provider. Some telephone companies have offered limited discounts or promotions for equipment from Linksys and other vendors, but this is the first free promotion I've heard of. There's a quote in the press release, which I normally shy away from including, but is quite explicit in its authorization of community and neighborhood networking. "Unlike traditional ISPs, which either prohibit wireless networking entirely or grudgingly allow it but saddle customers with extra fees, Speakeasy is encouraging unfettered access. Speakeasy users can extend their broadband connections wirelessly -- to additional computers in their homes or even to computers in neighboring homes," said Mike Apgar, Speakeasy CEO. "Speakeasy is virtually alone in encouraging neighborhood Wi-Fi networks." Later in the press release, Apgar notes that restaurants and coffee shops can buy this kind of DSL and share it, too: it's not just limited to home sharing. comments? [] 5:07:09 PM

© Copyright 2003 Jon Schull. Last update: 11/10/03; 6:37:29 PM.