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Showing posts with the label 2018 at 10:23AM Mallory Locklear

Google is making it easier for 911 to find you in an emergency

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When you call 911 from a cellphone, your location is typically sent to the call taker by a wireless carrier. But that information isn't always so accurate. Well Google might have a better way of going about it and it tested its system across a few states in December and January, the Wall Street Journal reports. In the states where the tests took place, Google sent location data from a random selection of 911 callers using Android phones straight to the people taking those calls. The test included nearly 51,000 call centers that cover around 2.4 million people in Texas, Tennessee and Florida, and early reports of the results suggest the system is promising. One company involved in the test told the Wall Street Journal that for over 80 percent of the 911 calls where Google's system was used, the tech giant's location data were more accurate than what wireless carriers provided. The company, RapidSOS , also said that while carrier data location estimates had, on average...

Fitbit could add glucose monitors to future health-monitoring devices

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Fitbit just invested over $6 million in a company called Sano that's working on a coin-sized patch that monitors blood sugar, CNBC reports. The wearables-maker already incorporates other glucose-tracking devices' data into its Ionic smartwatch , but this investment suggests that the company might be looking to more directly incorporate a monitor into its devices. "This fits into our strategy of looking beyond the device and thinking more about (health) solutions," Fitbit CEO James Park told CNBC . "I think the complete solution comes in the form of having some monitoring solution that is coupled with a display, and a wearable that can give you the interventions at the right moment." Fitbit isn't the only one interested in a built-in blood sugar monitor. Reports surfaced early last year that Apple was working on one itself, but while Sano's product uses tiny needles to take its measurements, Apple has reportedly been chasing a device that has so...