Link = Alcoólicos Anônimos Brasil
domingo, 16 de março de 2014
Brasileños se benefician del primer autobús eléctrico movido por baterías
Dos autobuses artículados de la Empresa Metropolitana de Transportes Urbanos de Sao Paulo, Brasil. El primer autobús eléctrico en el mundo movido por baterías cumple el sábado 10 días de circulación en Sao Paulo.
ISADORA CAMARGO
SAO PAULO -- El primer autobús eléctrico en el mundo movido por baterías cumplió el sábado 10 días de circulación en el municipio de Diadema, en la región metropolitana de Sao Paulo y donde ya movilizó más de 135,000 personas que comienzan a convivir con esta apuesta brasileña para reducir emisiones de gases y ruidos.
Silencioso y más leve, el autobús opera con pasajeros desde el pasado 5 de marzo dentro de la flota urbana convencional en uno de los municipios de la mayor ciudad brasileña, que incluye vehículos movidos a diesel, etanol, biodiesel, hidrógeno y en algunos sectores de la metrópoli los tradicionales trolebuses eléctricos.
El autobús movido por batería recorre diariamente 170 kilómetros dentro de la circulación de los varios viajes que realiza con su ruta en Diadema.
En una combinación nipona-brasileña, el chasis, carrocería y motor del autobús son fabricados en Brasil, mientras que las baterías y el sistema de recarga de energía vienen de la multinacional japonesa Mitsubishi.
La combinación fue definida por el gobierno del estado de Sao Paulo como un proyecto de transporte público “ambientalmente correcto” y en sus primeros días de operaciones comienza a seducir a los pasajeros, que se sorprenden por el poco ruido del vehículo y su trepidación menos brusca comparada con la de otros autobuses.
El encendido del vehículo se realiza desde un panel de control que monitoriza el tiempo de recarga, los niveles máximos y mínimos de consumo y otras informaciones necesarias antes de poner en marcha el autobús.
La profesora Evanir Souza, que todos los días utiliza la ruta, comparó el sonido del vehículo con la sensación de estar en un ascensor y lo definió como un “autobús ecológico”.
Los 11 kilómetros de cada trayecto, con 124 pasajeros, se realizan en un espacio de 40 minutos entre la terminal de autobuses de Diadema y la estación Morumbí del sistema de trenes metropolitanos.
A pesar de que la estructura y el diseño del vehículo son idénticos a los del resto de la flota, como “cero emisor de polución” el autobús es una alternativa para enfrentar la “nueva realidad ambiental”, según señaló a Efe el presidente de la Empresa Metropolitana de Transportes Urbanos (EMTU) de Sao Paulo, Joaquim Lopes.
“Para la ciudad de Sao Paulo, la inserción urbana de este tipo de tecnología eliminará toda esa parafernalia de cables aéreos (del trolebús) y tendremos un paisaje más limpio y bonito, sin contaminación y menor ruido”, destacó Lopes.
El proyecto brasileño-japonés es precursor en el mundo para un sistema de transporte a gran escala, en el que cada autobús es movido por catorce baterías de iones de litio recargadas en la noche durante entre tres y cuatro horas continuas y en el día, por 10 minutos, a cada cincuenta kilómetros.
Las baterías son similares a las utilizadas en teléfonos móviles y otros aparatos electrónicos, pero con una mayor capacidad de recarga y duración.
Ahora el reto del gobierno regional será continuar con los programas para descongestionar el servicio en todo el sistema, uno de los retos que hace años afronta la mayor ciudad suramericana.
“Para el planeta el autobús es ‘súper saludable’ y puede operar en su desempeño casi como los movidos a diesel gracias a su tecnología de recarga y utilización de energía”, señaló Iván Regina, gerente de Planificación de Transporte, Desarrollo Tecnológico y Medio Ambiente (DPT).
Regina espera que después de los seis meses de la prueba que actualmente se realiza con pasajeros en el prototipo del vehículo, los resultados técnicos y económicos permitan evaluar la posibilidad de planificar una producción a gran escala para el mercado del vehículo.
Quotes by Albert Einstein
- Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
-- Albert Einstein - The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
-- Albert Einstein - Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
-- Albert Einstein - The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.
-- Albert Einstein - Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.
-- Albert Einstein - Isn't it strange that who have written only unpopular books should be such a popular fellow?
-- Albert Einstein - I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.
-- Albert Einstein - The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
-- Albert Einstein - Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
-- Albert Einstein - The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
-- Albert Einstein - Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.
-- Albert Einstein - When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity.
-- Albert Einstein - If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
-- Albert Einstein - Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
-- Albert Einstein - Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.
-- Albert Einstein - I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
-- Albert Einstein - The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.
-- Albert Einstein - I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
-- Albert Einstein - The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.
-- Albert Einstein - You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
-- Albert Einstein
Advancing Breastfeeding: The Power of the Network
March 13, 2014
Chinese celebrity Ma Yili has over 50 million social media fans, and now she’s using her influence to promote breastfeeding in her home country, where only 28 percent of babies are exclusively breastfed. The “10m2 of Love” campaign Ma is publicizing includes a mobile app to help Chinese women locate and use public breastfeeding spaces.
From China to Pakistan, Venezuela and Viet Nam, countries are experimenting with new approaches to promote a life saving, natural practice under threat in the modern world.
At the global level, however, the breastfeeding community has yet to coalesce as an effective network. Today it’s in search of the strong leadership, unified agenda and contemporary message required to spark a social movement for breastfeeding in the 21st century.
Those are the findings of a recent UNICEF study seeking to understand why funding and political commitment for breastfeeding remains low, despite compelling evidence of its benefits.
Sound like a wonkish question? Try answering it, and you’ll soon be grappling with life or death matters.
No one has thought harder about generating political attention for global health than professor and researcher Jeremy Shiffman. His special interest: why some issues receive priority while others are neglected. When UNICEF needed to make sense of the rich feedback it received from breastfeeding stakeholders around the world, it turned to his framework.
Shiffman’s case studies have attracted enormous interest not only because he’s a pioneer in an emerging field. His research also taps into the universal quest by advocates to discover a “secret sauce” – a formula – which could reliably generate visibility, funding and policy change. Shiffman’s latest work focuses on the dynamic interaction of three elements that determine why some global health networks flourish while others stagnate. It’s a valuable checklist for those seeking insight on this vital question:
Network Who are the actors and do they agree on solutions to the problem? Does the network have strong leadership, guiding institutions and a common agenda? Is the issue framed in a manner that resonates with political leaders? Are civil society organizations mobilized behind the cause?
Policy environment Can the network count on influential allies? Is the global policy context favorable to the issue? Does it face opposition and - if yes – what are the implications? Are there sufficient resources for programs? Is the network aligned behind measurable targets?
Issue characteristics How severe is the problem? Which populations are affected? Does the network have effective interventions for addressing it, and are they easily measured?
UNICEF’s study applied Shiffman’s categories to analyze responses such as these:
“Those of us who care about infant and young child feeding need to be together. We cannot afford disjointed messaging or disagreement. We need to focus on the bigger picture.”
“Leadership is the number one factor in building political and donor support. When James Grant took on the Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative, that leadership was transformative.”
“We need to generate evidence breastfeeding practices can be improved at large scale within a reasonable time frame, because that creates excitement it can be done. You can only achieve scale if you simplify and focus.”
UNICEF is accountable with WHO for global progress on infant and young child feeding and it’s taking the study’s findings seriously. We’re encouraged UNICEF and partners are now working to put the report’s recommendations into action. To raise breastfeeding on the worldwide agenda, the strategy focuses on mobilizing commitment for WHO’s 2025 global nutrition target. This requires coordinated action to support all women to breastfeed from the first hour after birth till their child reaches two.
Only a high-performing network can do so.
A great opportunity lies ahead when the world adopts the first global roadmap to reduce newborn deaths. It’s also a test.
The first weeks and months after birth are the most perilous for infants in low-income settings. Breastfeeding is the closest there is to a ‘silver bullet’ protecting them from malnutrition and death.
Will the newborn network invite breastfeeding stakeholders to the table, to join forces toward a common goal? Will all partners consulted by UNICEF commit to the shared strategy?
You can influence the debate by commenting below. We also invite you to share on Twitter with a message such as the one below. Your voice matters.
Advancing #breastfeeding - the power of the network
Expedition 38 Takes an In-Flight Crew Portrait
Expedition 38 crew members pose for an in-flight crew portrait in the Kibo laboratory of the International Space Station on Feb. 22, 2014. Pictured (clockwise from top center) are Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kotov, commander; Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Ryazanskiy, NASA astronauts Rick Mastracchio and Mike Hopkins, and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin, all flight engineers.
Image Credit: NASA
Connecting students to the real world through science
Connecting students to the real world through science Among his accomplishments, 2012 PAEMST awardee Timothy Emhoff co-designed the elementary portion of the Naval Surface Warfare Center's STEM program, Go Places! With Math and Science, which is used county-wide to expose students to career connections.
Lean, green machinery from the 2014 Geneva Motor Show
New green designs at the 2014 Geneva Motor Show
In addition to the sporty and strange, the Geneva Motor Show hosts its fair share of green cars and concepts. This year, everyone from mainstream manufacturers to university teams showed designs built from ultralight components, powered by alternative fuels and otherwise designed around fuel- and emissions-frugal commuting.
Power cells
Fuel cell concepts have grown into an auto show standard, and the Geneva Motor Show served as the debut platform for the Hyundai Intrado Concept. The concept car is powered by what Hyundai calls a next-generation hydrogen fuel cell system with a 36- kWh lithium-on battery pack that offers up to 373 miles (600 km) of driving range. The car features a simple, streamlined structural and body design that's meant to optimize weight and aerodynamics. The super-lightweight steel body is stripped of the usual decorative trim, and the interior draws attention to functional elements, such as the carbon frame.
A different kind of cell pumps energy through the Nanoflowcell Quant e-Sportlimousine. The radically styled four-seater lays claim to being the first vehicle powered by a flow cell battery. This battery stores energy in tanks of electrolytic solutions, providing easy refueling and an estimated range of between 249 and 373 miles (400 and 600 km), all while backing a 912-hp, four-motor powertrain. Those four motors can team up to slingshot the driver to 62 mph (100 km/h) in 2.8 seconds without capping acceleration until 236 mph (380 km/h).
All the numbers and claims about the Quant e-Sportlimousine scream "vaporware," and we're not so sure Nanoflowcell will actually come through with a testable car, but the Quant certainly provides some interesting food for thought, which is what any good concept car/prototype should do.
Material world
Lightweight construction through innovative materials was another popular theme in Geneva. The Biofore Concept Car, a project from Finnish biomaterials company UPM, the Helsinki Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and a few other partners, is one of the most interesting examples of this approach. The carbon fiber chassis is familiar enough, but from there, the partners take off in new directions, replacing oil-based plastics with more renewable materials. The body is crafted from UPM Formi biocomposite, a recyclable, cellulose fiber-based composite, while the interior features generous use of UPM Grada thermoformable wood, creating a clean, sustainable cockpit that definitely looks like it came from northern Europe.
The partners say that this construction saves about 331 lb (150 kg) over a similarly sized car using more traditional materials. The car's 1.2-liter diesel engine is fueled by UPM BioVerno, a wood-based diesel that is said to cut greenhouse emissions by as much as 80 percent versus traditional fossil fuels. The car is built to be street legal, and its biomaterials can be recycled or burned after its lifecycle is over.
Another university project that looks well beyond the edges of the box in terms of materials is the Biomobile. An ongoing project of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO) started in 2004, the Biomobile uses natural materials, such as banana and plant fibers, in its construction. It's powered by a Honda GX25 four-stroke engine, more commonly used in lawn and garden equipment. That engine runs on a biofuel made from organic waste, which it sips at a glacial rate of 1,960 US mpg (0.12 L/100 km). As a 55-lb (25-kg), 9.7 x 2 x 1.8-foot (3 x .6 x .5-m), streamliner-like one-seater, it's not exactly a practical design for the roads, but it is an interesting experiment in materials and design techniques. It has a top speed around 19 mph (30 km/h).
The MILA Blue concept car from Austria's Magna Steyr doesn't stray outside the box looking for lightweight materials, relying instead on common materials like aluminum, magnesium and composites. Magna Steyr also cuts out unnecessary material, such as interior plastic trim, and downsizes components, saving some 661 lb (300 kg) over the weight of a typical A-segment vehicle. The concept's compressed natural gas hybrid drive emits less than 49 g CO2/km.
Electric shock
The Pariss 2013 electric roadster protoype debuted at last year's Geneva Motor Show, so perhaps it's only natural that this year's show brought the Pariss 2014, which offers a similar combination of green driving and electrifying performance as the Tesla Roadster.
The latest Pariss prototype gets a more powerful 241-hp (180-kW), dual-motor drivetrain that sends the two-seater rolling to 62 mph in 3.7 seconds – more than a second quicker than was advertised on the 2013 prototype. Pariss is still estimating 124 miles (200 km) of range, which can be more than tripled up to 435 miles (700 km) with the available 220-lb (100-kg) range extender. A fast-charge system offers battery top-off in as little as an hour. The roadster's length and wheelbase remain the same, but the 2014 prototype weighs about 110 lb (50 kg) more at 1,764 lb (800 kg). Pariss still doesn't mention any production dates, but it does list a price of €80,000 euro (US$111,000).
The icy Subaru Viziv concept from the 2013 Geneva show was back in 2014, in the form of the updated Viziv 2. The new concept SUV gets transformed into four-door format and uses an updated plug-in hybrid AWD system with a 1.6-liter turbo engine, a high-torque-compatible Lineartronic (CVT) transmission, a front motor and two rear motors. Given that this is the third iteration of the Viziv concept that we've seen in one year's time, we expect elements of it – or even the whole shebang – to show up in Subaru's line-up in the future.
More than just a concept car or an exotic with a "TBA" release date, the Volkswagen Golf GTE revealed in Geneva is a real production car. The model's plug-in hybrid drive adds a fifth powertrain option to the Golf series, which also has gas, diesel, natural gas and electric models. The sporty hybrid hatch gets up to 31 miles (50 km) of all-electric range and 584 total miles (940 km) of total range, courtesy of its plug-in powertrain with 148-hp 1.4-liter turbo TSI engine and 101-hp electric motor. The 8.8-kWh lithium-ion battery charges in 2.5 to 3.5 hours. The plug-in Golf earns its "GT" letters with a 7.6-second 0-62 mph time and 135 mph (217 km/h) top speed.
The Web turns 25
On March 12, 1989 Tim Berners-Lee, while working as a contractor at the CERN laboratories in Switzerland, submitted Information Management: A Proposal, which sparked the greatest advance in information technology since Gutenberg invented the printing press. At the time, it was just a way for CERN scientists to share data, but a quarter of a century later, it’s grown from a curiosity into a necessity without which our world can no longer function.
For something that has had such an impact on our lives, the Web is surprisingly simple ... but so is the starter button on a McLaren P1. In many ways, it didn’t even seem like that big a leap at the time. Computers had been around for decades and throughout the 1980s they’d grown smaller, cheaper, more powerful, and more common. As far back as Vannevar Bush’s work in the 1940s, scientists and engineers had been working on how to get computers to communicate with one another, and the internet itself had been under development since 1969.
The problem was that in 1989, unless you were an accountant or a writer, the average computer was like an Alfa Romeo Spyder. It might be a great piece of technology, but it spent most of the time in the garage. That’s because no one had yet sorted out a way for any computer to communicate with any other computer.
Birth of the Web
Then in March 1989, Tim (now Sir Tim) Berners-Lee submitted his proposal for a new information management system that would allow the scattered scientific personnel of CERN to easily share data. His boss, Mike Sendall, called it "vague, but exciting" and allowed Berners-Lee to continue work on his idea.
This idea was very simple. It involved marrying hypertext to the internet by means of three essential technologies developed by Berners-Lee and his team. The first was a system of unique identifiers for each page, image, or other resource on the internet called a URI or URL. Then there was HyperText Markup Language (HTML), which was a simple way of creating web pages, and finally, there was Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is a protocol to exchange or transfer hypertext.
Though similar systems had already been developed, Berners-Lee used unidirectional links rather than bidirectional ones, so links could be added without the page being linked from needing to do anything, and allowed web servers and browsers to be easily built. Berners-Lee and his team went on to write the first web page editor/writer, which he called the “WorldWideWeb,” the first server, which was housed in an unassuming NeXT computer, and in 1990, the first web page. In 1991, CERN opened the web up to users outside the laboratory, and in 1993, it was given to the world royalty free.
Even then, the Web wasn't much to write home about. There were already ways that people could get onto the internet with primitive modems using such things as BBS and Compuserve, but these were proprietary, limited, and most computer networks were largely closed off. However, thanks to a mixture of good engineering, marketing, and dumb luck, the Web eventually won out.
It was decentralized, owned by no-one, controlled by no-one, was built by individuals for their own purposes rather than tailored for a specific task, and while its competitors were like trains running on fixed tracks, the Web was more like motor cars that the users could drive where they wished. Then along came the Mosaic browser that brought a graphical user interface to the Web, kickstarting rapid growth that would see the number of web users explode to 50 million inside of five years.
In the 25 years since Berners-Lee’s proposal, the Web’s come a long way from the days when its main function was to host Kirk vs Picard flame wars. It’s had a huge impact that has touched every facet of our lives, from entertainment to politics to manufacturing to medicine. It’s become so pervasive in such a short time that to do justice to its effects would mean describing most of our technology and economy, as well as a great swatch of our culture. But it is possible to get some idea of what the Web hath wrought by looking at how it’s affected our everyday lives.
Information
The most obvious way in which the Web has touched us is the incredible amount of information that is at our disposal at the click of a mouse or a tap on a screen. Anyone anywhere has free access to the greatest single source of information in history. Everyone with access to the Web can tap into a library of books, magazines, and newspapers that would astonish a scholar of the last generation.
And it isn't just common or garden variety books. Back in the 1980s, getting to the rare books section in the British Library, or similar collections, required credentials and references to get anywhere near the place. Once inside, you were constantly hovered over, and woe betide if you were caught with a biro on the premises. Now those same treasures have been digitized and are available to all.
The other effect of this is that where thousands of books, music, and old radio programs were left to fade into history or sink into the clearance bins of secondhand book shops, they’re now readily available, and even "orphan" works that would have died a death by copyright because the authors and publishers couldn't be located are now finding new audiences.
Buying stuff
Another obvious area where the Web has hit society like a sledgehammer is the economy. Shopping isn't about going down to the shops any more. It’s about going online. Bricks and mortar is where we try on shoes or measure the television to see if it fits in the living room. The Web is where we actually buy them.
We can now buy almost anything on the Web. Groceries, cars, insurance, toys, and a billion other things are all on sale for delivery to your home. Some things don’t even need to be actually delivered. Where books, music, and DVDs may once have made up most of what people bought online, such media can now all be purchased and never see the inside of a delivery van, because they can be downloaded or streamed directly.
Never getting lost
Until the Web came along, getting lost was a fact of life, as was fighting with folding maps while driving a car. Now there aren't just dedicated GPS navigation devices, but assistance is available wherever you can get a connection. We now live in a world where you can ask your phone "where am I?" and it will tell you, instead of everyone around you looking at you as if you've gone mad. More than that, your device will tell you how to get home, when the next bus is, and where you can grab a bite to eat on the way.
Interactive media
Before the Web came along, media was a one-way street under the control of those who produced it. It used to be that media, whether it was books, music, or whatever, sat behind a bottleneck caused by how it was made and distributed. Vinyl records, for example, required a small army of artists, engineers, packers, and shippers, as well as masses of equipment, before listeners could play them at home. Thanks to the Web, music is reduced to data files that can be streamed or downloaded instantly.
The same is true of books, videos, and more. More than that, media now has a third dimension. You don’t just read, you share highlights. You don’t follow a sci-fi series once a week, you watch it in a massive binge, then go online to look at the minisodes, tweets, Facebook pages, and so on. Watching a film trailer these days can involve a lot of commitment.
Reaching out
One truly astonishing effect of the Web has been the bubble of instant communication that we live in. It short circuits time and distance in a way inconceivable a generation ago, with people Skyping someone in London from Chicago as casually as a local phone call. It’s a world where people take "selfies" and instantly share photos of what they’re having for lunch with a potential global audience.
There are now so many ways to stay connected that you need apps to manage them. When the Web first started to catch on, someone who checked their email more than once a day was seen as odd. Now there’s not only email, but blogs, texting, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flicker, YouTube, Google+, Pinterest, and all their imitators. People don’t just communicate with each other instantly and constantly, but create whole communities with people who they've never spoken to outside of the Web. Not to mention that a "friend" can now be someone we’ve never so much as exchanged a word with.
The downside
The columnist James Lileks once said that modern technology allows you to do to your music collection with one click what once required half a dozen clumsy house movers. As the Web has grown, it’s not only pumped billions of dollars into the economy and given us powers that were once reserved for the very rich, it’s also given much more scope for things to go horribly wrong.
It isn't just things that trade off between connectivity and privacy, the NSA and GCHQ spying scandals, online pornography, cyber stalking, bullying, and identity theft, but the everyday things like discovering that the Web is forever. It’s discovering that the hilarious photo of what you did at the pub last night will be seen by your kids years later.
It’s the sheer time wasting as your life vanishes in a parade of lolcats, flappy birds, Miley Cyrus video clips, and pages comparing Benedict Cumberbatch to an otter. Even Berners-Lee says he never foresaw kittens.
What’s next?
But the most sobering thing about the Web is that its impact is still playing out and will be for years to come. Today, only 25 percent of the world’s population have access to it, how it will evolve and who will control it is still under debate, and the next phase of its technology is still under development.
Where the Web was once a distinct thing that you went to and read, then something that you interacted with, now its becoming a pervasive entity that’s moving out of our computers and our phones and into our cars, our televisions, and (for some unfathomable reason) our fridges. The question is, what will it look like in the next 25 years, and will it still be something we can just switch off and go for a walk in the woods instead.
Your turn
How has the Web affected your life? Let us know in the comments below.
A message from Tim Berners-Lee.
Wello $200 case turns iPhone into personal health monitor
The US$199 Wello health monitoring iPhone case
Health monitoring start-up Azoi has announced the availability of a significant product in the form of the Wello, a lightweight smartphone case embedded with sensors that measures blood pressure, electrocardiography (ECG), heart rate, blood oxygen, temperature, and lung functions to a high level of accuracy. The US$199 Wello case will be initially available for iPhone 4S, 5 and 5S, but for those who don’t have one of those phones, the case will still work with any IOS or android device which has Bluetooth LE functionality – you just won’t be able to use the case on your phone.
With such functionality, the Wello has the potential to become a disruptive technology, enabling people in developed countries to track all their key vital health data, and make more informed lifestyle choices. In undeveloping countries where the healthcare system is poor or non-existent, it has the potential to facilitate much more.
“Over the last two years, we have focused our efforts on coming up with a technologically advanced yet easy-to-use tool to help you monitor health and facilitate better lifestyle choices,” Azoi's founder and CEO, Hamish Patel, told Gizmag.com.
“We are proud to introduce Wello – a not so small engineering feat in microelectronics, nanosensors, imaging, data analytics and design, that we hope will make a big difference in helping the world become a healthier place. We have effectively put health monitoring equipment, typically in large form factors, into a highly convenient and accessible mobile phone case.”
Statistics about global health problems and the incidence of preventable diseases are all too familiar. According to the World Health Organization, heart disease is the number one cause of death worldwide, hypertension afflicts nearly a billion people globally and 347 million people have diabetes. With simple, regular monitoring of health data, people are better equipped to identify potential issues and seek advice before they become serious illnesses.
“All too often, health problems go undetected until they are too late to address,” says Patel. “We believe that through improved self-awareness of key vitals, technology could very easily reduce the incidence and impact of a wide range of illnesses and diseases. Not only could this help ensure healthier, happier lives, but it could also ease the growing burden on healthcare services.”
Wello is the first ever device to allow you to measure and record your vitals from wherever you are. It conveniently slides onto a smartphone disguised as a case so you always have it with you. You simply hold it for a few moments while hidden sensors take measurements and pass on gathered information to the Wello app. Not only do you get instantaneous results and key data about your health, over time you’ll see patterns that hopefully will help you take better care of yourself.
It also connects with other health and fitness devices such as pedometers and sleep trackers to help identify how different behaviors can affect one’s bodily state. Furthermore, Wello provides safe and secure remote access, so it can be used to track the key vitals of family members too.
Azoi has been in stealth mode for the last two years as it has developed the Wello case, but we were given a sneak preview earlier this week and can report that it appeared to work as advertised, offering a quite astonishing array of health monitoring tools that will almost certainly have a major impact on the lives of many people.
The Wello is likely to be the first such device to offer this array of health monitoring functionality, with the only other contender being the Scanadu Scout, a device which Gizmag covered last year during its now complete Indiegogo fund raising campaign. Scanadu has not yet released the product.
It seems quite easy to use. Click to start, put your fingers on the sensors for around 10 to 15 seconds, and it begins to read out heart rate, ECG, blood oxygen levels, temperature, respiration, systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
"If you already have existing devices, like fitbit, or a Jawbone Up, our device syncs to all that data and basically we correlate all the readings of all your vitals that we take," Patel told Gizmag.
"The Wello will read heart rate, temperature, blood oxygen levels, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, ECG, and it does other heart functions too and it also does your lung function tests, which is the first of its kind", says Patel.
"If you were to do your lung function tests right now, you would have to go to the hospital, as there is no low-cost device you can use at home to keep a regular track of your lungs.
"Lung function is very important because lung diseases are the third largest killer of people in the world, killing a lot more people each year than diabetes. Respirometer prices start at US$1500 and upwards, and they are so big and intimidating, it restricts mass adoption of such devices. By miniaturizing the technology and giving the same level of clinical accuracy, we’re taking lung function tests into the home for the first time, which is likely to create a very positive impact on your lifestyle and that of your family.
"The Wello is also not intimidating, and that was our big goal with this device. We set out to create a product that was with you most of the time, that disappears when you’re not using it. That was one of the most important goals for us and we cracked how to do it around six to seven months back and we’ve been refining the product ever since to get it into production and we’re ready now."
What were the major challenges during the development phase?
"The development process has taken around two years. We’re a 40 person company at present. Most of us are technologists engineers and product designers. The first goal was how to figure out how to do all those things and do it with the most minimalistic hardware possible, which we've now achieved.
"There were a lot of challenges with the first step – developing the sensors and fitting all those sensors into a very portable device was a huge challenge. Of course since it’s a mobile device, power consumption was extremely high initially but Bluetooth LE (BLE) solved a lot of the power issues, and the power consumption of the communication network was drastically reduced.
"The sensors also consume a lot of power but we actually have managed to systematically reduce the power consumption of the sensors so that you can now run this device for around two months on a single charge. It has a rechargeable battery inside it which charges from wall sockets or a computer via a USB connection.
"Our initial prototypes were extremely large, but with each iteration, we reduced the footprint and we had a couple of great tools we found over the last year which helped to bring it down in size. Things like working out how to read blood pressure without a big cuff that goes around your arm. Now we don’t need that cuff, all you need to do is hold the Wello case and it reads your blood pressure.
"The second biggest problem was how to miniaturize the respirometer in it and of course we had a lot of challenges in that also, but I think we’re in a good place now as we’ve solved all those major problems.
"With each new iteration in the development process, we started again to simplify and oversimplify it to go to the next level and now we’ve been able to use BLE, we’ve reached a level we’re happy with."
How have you financed the company to date?
"We have raised two rounds of funding, an angel round and a seed round. We formed the company in November 2011 and that was when we raised the angel investment round, and we raided a seed round in August 2013, and both rounds were subscribed through high net worth individuals in India, the United States and Africa."
As the founder, what's your background?
"I have an engineering degree in electronics from Bangalore University in India. Right after university I worked at Honeywell and I left there to pursue the idea and I started a company called Stealthflash, which was basically a research arm for this project, while I was figuring out all the aspects of all the technologies required. When the idea was mature, I formed the Azoi company."
Who has been involved in the development?
"We have done all of the development in-house so we have an R&D team, an app team, web developers, a product design team, and basically everything was built in-house because to build a product like this, we needed a lot of different expertise and the ability to coordinate it tightly."
Where is the company based?
"The company is based in Ahmedabad in India and we now have a US registered company. Now that the development of the product is over, we’re setting up an office in the Bay Area (San Francisco) and the manufacturing of the product will also be done in the United States in Texas."
What's the vision for the company?
"We want to keep creating products which will have a mass market positive impact in the lives of people so with Wello, if you think about it, a product like this in a country like India which has a healthcare penetration of next to nothing, you could just have one of those in each village and just share the readings with a doctor in the city via the mobile network and you can imagine the kinds of problems it would solve.
"People would not have to travel hundreds of kilometers just to get an ECG reading so this actually has the potential to create a huge impact on public healthcare. In a lot of countries it will mean different things to different people but in general we want to keep creating products which will have a significant impact on the lives of people everywhere.
How will the product transfer from phone to phone as people seem to upgrade their phones every twelve months to keep up with ever increasing functionality? "One of the problems we foresaw in the design phase was people continually upgrading their phones. Are people going to want to spend another US$199 again? We didn’t want users to have to do that, so what we did was put all the electronics into a single cartridge which slips into the case so you can remove the cartridge with all the electronics inside it. When you buy a new phone, you can just buy another case from us for somewhere between US$5 and US$10 and use the same cartridge. Customers won’t have to spend US$199 every time they upgrade their phone.
"We have a universal port on the case so it can be upgraded. Just say for example, that we came up with a way for measuring non-invasive glucose levels – we’re not actually doing this by the way, but if we did, you wouldn’t have to pay US$199 again, because we expect to be able to leverage all the electronics which are inside already and come up with a lower cost version of the add-on. So it’s scalable hardware in that sense – you don’t need to use new hardware every time.
So what upgrades to functionality do you envisage?
"We’re going to continue to invest in Wello and the number of vital readings that it takes, and what you can do with those vitals. Our goal is not just to show the user those measurements because they may not understand what they mean. We want to make it very simple for anyone to understand the data it collects.
"We can read a lot more body vitals than we’re launching with, however we have our own internal compliance processes and we continually test the readings we’re getting against a lot of existing clinical devices that exist in the market to verify the accuracy of those readings. That is a very long and time-consuming internal compliance process and until we’re happy with the accuracy of those readings, we can’t launch with those features because it’s a health device and it must be accurate. It’s just not as easy as putting the sensors together and have it start working accurately straight away. There are a lot of new iterations to come, but I can’t tell you about them right now exactly what other future readings we’ll do.
"We also have other product lines under development but we’ll talk about those when the products become more mature."
What smartphones will you cater for at launch?
"Initially, we’ll be launching with Apple iPhone 4S, 5 and 5S but because it has Bluetooth LE, we can read into any iOS device or android phone with Bluetooth LE will work with the Wello. With Android, there are too many form factors for us to do them all, and as a start-up we cannot cater to all of them with individual cases. We intend to tie-up with the mobile case companies later on, to actually get the $5 case produced for those other phones, and the users can slip the cartridge with all the electronics in it into their phone case then. We have developed design guidelines for a number of other form factor cases, but as a company, we’re only supporting these models initially. This case will work with any android phone with Bluetooth LE now, it's just that the case won’t fit."
"Initially, we expect it will get more traction in the United States, Canada and the European countries where there are a lot of people who are early adopters. A lot of people in those countries will recognise that the Wello solves the very important problem of monitoring your vitals and that it has a strong use case in their lives." -Hamish Patel, founder and CEO of Azoi, makers of the Wello
Do you see more potential for Wello in developing countries or in richer countries?
"Initially, we expect it will get more traction in the United States, Canada and the European countries where there are a lot of people who are early adopters. A lot of people in those countries will recognize that the Wello solves the very important problem of monitoring your vitals and that it has a strong use case in their lives.
"However, as far as having a major impact on society, I think it will have greater impact in developing countries as time goes by because of its low cost and the mobility factor that it has. It has a two month charge so you don’t need constant power. If you have a cell phone and a Wello, you’re good to go for a very long time.
"You don’t need to keep it plugged in and you can share the data easily from a remote location. So it potentially has a lot more impact and some very compelling use cases in developing countries, and we’re really excited about the prospect of the way people will use it. As far as initial traction for the product though, we’re also excited about how it will be used in the North America and Europe, because of the impact it can have in influencing people's personal lives.
"Different countries will use it in different ways. I am from India, and it’s a cultural thing in India that you live at home for a long time, and because I am a very busy person and I run a start-up, I hardly ever spend time at home. At the moment it is very difficult for me to get my mum and dad to go for regular health check-ups. If I give a Wello case to my parents, I can keep a track of how they are doing, even when I’m sitting in my office in the Bay area. Due to the cultures of some countries, this could become a very important device."
Wello is now available for pre-order in the United States, Canada, China, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Kingdom and across the European Union. Through Azoi’s referral program, every purchaser gets a unique URL to share and when a Wello is ordered using that URL they will get a $10 credit. In the United States, Wello retails for US$199 and will ship in Q3, 2014 pending FDA approval.
Source: Azoi
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