Services and applications

Mobile health technology continues to prove itself. The latest example comes in the form of on-the-go diabetes management.

In a recent small trial, 30 patients with type 2 diabetes spent 12 months using a smartphone app that provided real-time feedback on their blood-sugar levels, prompted them when to eat or take other action, and sent digital logbooks of their readings back to their doctors.

The surprising result: these patients had 58 percent fewer ER and hospital visits over the year of the study than they'd had the previous year.

It's important not to overinterpret that result. Not only … Read more

AT&T may be huge and generating boatloads of cash every quarter, but when it comes to service, the carrier has a lot of work to do.

For the second year in a row, AT&T was ranked last in Consumer Reports' annual customer satisfaction survey. The company was hit especially hard by complaints over poor voice service and phone-based customer care. Even worse for AT&T, the company's 2011 rating is slightly lower than last year's.

Consumer Reports' survey examines voice, data, and text-messaging service, as well as customer care. The specific ratings are … Read more

Smartphones accounted for 59 percent of the handsets sold to U.S. consumers in the third quarter of 2011, according to The NPD Group's Mobile Phone Track.

As the phones' penetration has grown, consumers have been more likely to find themselves with an ever more versatile tool in their pockets. These capabilities have certainly contributed to the decline in once hot-selling categories, such as MP3 players, digital cameras, and portable navigation products. These companies, in turn, have sought to differentiate themselves with, for example, larger screens on car navigation products and better image quality and longer zooms on digital cameras.

Smartphones are relatively cheap because of carrier subsidization; they are almost always with us because of the desire to be available for phone calls. However, are consumers settling for a second-hand experience in leaving their specialized gadgets behind? According to recent research from NPD Connected Intelligence, most consumers would say they are not. … Read more

Android users looking to replicate the Siri experience have another option now, with the introduction of an app called Cluzee.

Developed by startup Tronton and touted as a "talking intelligent personal digital assistant," Cluzee attempts to step up where other alternatives fall short. The free app is available now for devices running Android 2.1 or higher and has already gotten attention in the tech community.

As you'll see in the video below, Cluzee is designed to answer simple questions with real, helpful responses. Need to find a nearby pizza joint or check the weather forecast for the next few days? Cluzee is the app to handle not only these requests but many other tasks as well.… Read more

Last year, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab unveiled a novel pulse-measuring technique that used a low-resolution Webcam. It worked by imaging the human face to detect the slightest changes in brightness resulting from blood flow.

Electronics maker Philips is now is bringing a strikingly similar technology to market with its Vital Signs Camera App, though with the rather important disclaimer that said app should not be considered a medical tool.

The app, released last week for 99 cents, uses the iPad's built-in camera to detect those tiny changes in color--which Philips calls "micro-blushes"… Read more

Occasionally we see some learned organization counting the number of bytes of data that humans have produced to date. And I've been known to scoff at these projections.

Seriously folks, even if you think that the number is 789.332 yottabyes on some given day--let's say today--the number is bigger tomorrow. And it gets bigger the next day. Even the rate of growth of the world's collective data is meaningless. Who would ever try to collect it all in one place and do something with it?

Oops. Someone actually is trying to collect all the data in … Read more

LOS ANGELES--Chatting with rapper Busta Rhymes about smartphones, his sons, and the business of online music distribution isn't how I had intended to spend part of my afternoon.

Yet the artist made a surprise appearance at the Google Music launch in LA this afternoon and graciously granted CNET an interview. Rhymes joins other artists, like Coldplay and The Rolling Stones, whose work will be made exclusively available to Google Music users as part of a partnership between Google and publishers like Sony, Universal, and EMI. The effusive Busta sat down with me to share his views on the intersection … Read more

Insulin pumps, which deliver fast-acting insulin continuously through a catheter and are often preferred over injections, are still only used by only 20 to 30 percent of the 1.5 million people in the U.S. who are diagnosed with Type I diabetes.

Pumps might start getting more popular as the systems are get smaller, sleeker, and easier to use. Take Tandem Diabetes Care's t:slim, an insulin delivery system that has just been cleared by the FDA.

It's not only the smallest, but also the first to employ touch screen technology. Friends just might get gadget envy.… Read more

Ph.D. student Chris Seaton, who studies computer science at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, witnessed firsthand the horrors of serious burns while deployed in Afghanistan, Kenya, and elsewhere during his four years as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

So with the help of plastic surgeons at the University of Liverpool, Seaton developed Mersey Burns, an app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch that helps reduce errors when treating burn victims.

Mersey Burns has already won an innovation award, and it is set to be featured in the January issue of the Bulletin of the Royal College of Surgeons.… Read more