George Savage

What’s up with all the rumors about an upcoming Apple tablet computer?  Fake Steve Jobs blogs what might be the inside scoop.

Will it have a shiny surface so that Macolytes can adore themselves as they use it in public? (Yes. It must.) The tablet must look and feel not like something that was made by man — it must feel otherworldly, as if God himself made it and handed it to you.

Well, we got the ads worked out, and they’re amazing. We’ve also got the tutorial videos and how-tos, and what’s really cool is they show the Internet running at like a hundred times faster than in real life. The engineer dudes are like, Steve, you realize we can’t actually make a computer that goes this fast, right? Nonsense, I told them. You can and you will. They said, No, like, there are laws of physics involved here. So I sat there for a minute. I waited. They looked at me. Then I said, Okay, fine. You’re fired. So is your boss. They’re like, Our boss isn’t even here. I said, I don’t care, you’re all fired, now go back and fill out your paperwork and tell Papermaster to hire some engineers who can make my vision a reality.

We’ll get there, friends. Might not be ready in September. But we’ll get there. Peace.

Read the entire piece.

At least mobile phones can’t disturb me here. I’m just finishing up a big project and look forward to surfacing.

Dont’ worry, you’re in the right place.  I’m just experimenting with a new look for the blog.  Let me know what you think.

“Fake Steve Jobs” manages to be simultaneously hilarious and insightful about the prospects for Google successfully taking on Microsoft Windows with its much ballyhooed Chrome Browser-cum-OS.

A couple of samples:

Trying to make an OS out of Chrome is like saying you’re going to turn a Pontiac Aztek into a stretch limousine. I suppose it could be done, but why?

Then, finally, you set up another appointment and this time you do meet with them [Apple engineers] — but before they can even speak you just look at whatever it is they’ve made and you say, I’m sorry, that’s a piece of shit, and you walk out. Trust me, engineers love this. They’re all masochists. That’s why they became engineers in the first place.

Read the entire column.

Imagine that you have contracted tuberculosis.  The current standard of care includes Directly Observed Therapy (DOT), which requires you to head into a clinic each day for six to nine months to  stand in line so that a nurse or technician can watch you take your antibiotics.  A permanent record is made of your compliance or lack thereof.  Refuse to show?  If you’re lucky, health authorities might invest the resources to visit you each day to watch you take your pills.  Still not complying?  Expect to go to jail for the duration of your treatment.

There is no evil intent here.  Public health authorities are working to protect the public by reducing the incidence of drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis circulating in the general population.  Partial treatment encourages the emergence of drug-resistant strains by quickly knocking off the most sensitive organisms in a patient while providing a breather during which the more resistant bugs can reproduce unhindered.

What about a less-invasive approach?  Let’s call it EOT, or Electronically Observed Therapy.

The UK’s Telegraph newspaper reports:

The scheme, originally developed by students at the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology, offers free top-ups to sufferers who send text messages to health care centres with a unique code proving they have taken their drugs.

TB sufferers are often prescribed a cocktail of 15-20 pills, which they must take every day for six months to overcome tuberculosis, but many fail to complete the course, allowing the disease to build resistance to conventional drugs.

The global threat of drug-resistant TB was highlighted at a 27-nation conference in Beijing, which heard dire warnings from the World Health Organisation (WHO) of the consequences for developing nations if more action was not taken to tackle the disease.

It is estimated that more than 500,000 of the 9 million new cases of TB diagnosed each year are drug-resistant, with 50,000 cases categorised as the virtually untreatable “extensively” drug resistant strain. Nearly 2 million people die annually from TB.

There’s a lot that’s good here.  Instead of a Big Brother approach, patients are given incentives — free mobile phone time — in exchange for following the regimen most likely to result in a complete cure.  The individual benefits, as does society, since EOT is likely to prove more effective, less invasive, and a whole lot cheaper than DOT.  The drawback is that this method requires an extra step by patients:  testing urine to reveal a secret code on the test strip that, once texted via mobile phone, results in a topping off of the patient’s pre-paid mobile minutes.

My own company, Proteus Biomedical, is pursuing another EOT approach with its Raisin system.  I think that this is an important idea that, given time, could help reverse the TB and HIV/AIDS epidemics sweeping the globe.

I returned from Africa on Saturday.  Take a look at the photo at left to gauge how tough the trip was.

My colleagues who serve the poor and sick of Ethiopia each and every day are truly inspirational.  It was a blessing to be able to help them out for a couple of weeks.

I’ll be heading to Ethiopia for the second time on April 17 for two weeks of service.  My colleagues and I will be blogging each day from our church web-site, connectivity permitting.

The group I’ll be serving with is Mission to the World, a Christian organization providing care, treatment and social support to HIV/AIDS patients in Addis Ababa.  Another group of my colleagues will travel north to the city of Dese to work with local volunteers on public health efforts.

Internet connectivity in Ethiopia, when available at all, is usually via low-speed dial-up, so I probably won’t be able to update this blog while in Africa.

Time Magazine, in a February 26 article, describes the latest computerized personal trainers.  Read the article and bear in mind that the next generation of this technology — on-body sensors and computers leveraging wireless connectivity — may hold the key to improving chronic disease management, especially once pharmacologic therapy and individual physiologic response are incorporated into a personal treatment loop.

Imagine getting frequent flyer miles, health rewards points, or some other tangible benefit, simply by following the therapeutic regimen agreed upon with your doctor.  Follow your elderly mother’s medical progress by glancing at your phone while traveling a thousand miles away.  Discuss your medication dosage with a physician or nurse who is looking at personalized data in real-time rather than guessing about how best to change your prescription.  The possibilities are tantalizing.

Best of all, intelligent medicine is semiconductor-based, so we can bank on steadily increasing price-to-performance as volumes increase and computer technology advances.

Johnson & Johnson’s Lifescan company is taking tangible steps in this direction by Internet-enabling its OneTouch glucometers, allowing motivated patients and caregivers to manage diabetes more proactively.  Many other companies, including my own Proteus Biomedical, are pursuing thematically similar efforts.

Five hours here last night.  Glad I splurged and spent 80 Euros on the train station hotel with two stars!