Over the last few months, a great deal of time has been expended on the “hot competition” between Apple and Google in relation to smart phones. Much of this interest probably had to do with a partially imagined story of a once close friendship between Apple and Google, founded on their mutual enmity of Microsoft, now fractured on the rocks of competition and greed. While the truth probably isn’t as dramatic, whatever conflict exists is much less interesting than where they may overlap – especially when imagining where medical technology could go and how it would affect medical professionals. As most readers are undoubtedly aware, much of the recent discussion in the blogosphere on this topic (at least before January 27) was about the rapid ascent of the Android platform. The emergent themes were that the open and mutable nature of the Android operating system, the entry of multiple handset makers, and the absence of any restriction on software publishing will inevitably make Android the dominant smart phone platform of the future. The historical analogy given was desktop computing, where commodity hardware and a minimally restrictive operating system made Microsoft Windows the de facto standard, despite many obvious flaws. But, it seems this analogy is flawed and here’s why.

Continue reading this entry »

Google’s launch of it’s newest phone, the Nexus One, has been met with praise and skepticism.  There are many who love the speedy SnapDragon processor and the 5 megapixel camera, while others rail against its lack of differentiation from other Android OS platforms.  Through all the debate, I’ve found the built in capability of Voice to Text not getting much attention.  From what I’ve read of the phone so far, the voice to text appears to be surprisingly accurate, opening up the possibilities for this feature to be used for Medical Transcription services.  The only problem is Google has offered Voice to Text in other platforms, and we haven’t seen similar results.

Continue reading this entry »

By: Matthew DeAugustinis, MD/MPH student, MS4

The Google behemoth has brought us many life-simplifying applications in the last decade (gMail, Google Calendar, etc…). Health professional have found these applications priceless in many aspects of our busy lives. Whether keeping that Grand Rounds top on the agenda or making your kids recital, having access to the data of our lives wherever we have internet is something we cherish. In December 2008 Google released another web based app to organize our lives, Google Tasks.

Google Tasks functions as a simple to-do list, with the ability to create multiple lists, provide due dates (and sort by due dates), add notes and access these lists through gMail, Google Calendar or on a standalone web app. This enables individuals with busy lives, i.e. medical professionals, to keep tabs on what’s most important, when it’s important and if we’ve yet done it. Unfortunately, like many Google applications, Google Tasks is solely web-based requiring the use of a browser and internet connection to access your tasks (both on a PC and Mobile Device). This issue has been remedied in the past for gMail and Google Calendar by the native Apple applications “Calendar” and “Mail” which sync with Google but retain information for offline viewing. Apple has no such native app for tasks. In comes GeeTasks to solve this issue.

Continue reading this entry »