“What’d I miss?” – Week of June 20, 2010

As usual there were a lot of things that happened during the week, and not all of it was pharmacy or technology related. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I found interesting.

– Toy Story 3 was #1 at the boxoffice last weekend. That’s no surprise. Everyone I’ve spoken with that saw it said it was good. I’m looking forward to seeing it this weekend. Las weekend my family and I took in The A-Team . I thought it was well done.

– Engadget: “The low-power color and monochrome screens are shown looking at least as good in the wild as they do in captivity, and when placed next to a traditional LCD (in the laptop on the right) the difference is clear.” – They’re talking about the Liquiavista display. Along with Pixel Qi and Mirasol, the Liquavista screen technology allows full sunlight viewability while offering very little power consumption. I’ve heard about these technologies for over a year now, but have yet to see them in a commercially available product. I’m getting restless.

– Take a look at the Toshiba Libretto W100 dual-screen clamshell.  I’ve seen the concept before with the MSI dual-screen tablet, but neither machine is available for purchase yet. I was alerted to the Libretto via a video over at the Scobleizer website. Neat technology, but how practical is the design? I’m not convinced that this is the way to go. At least not for me anyway.

– Kinect for the Xbox 360 is a new video game motion controller from Microsoft. It’s supposed to be available sometime in November, but you can try it out now at one of the four Microsoft Stores in the United States: Scottsdale, AZ, Mission Viejo, CA, Lone Tree, CO and San Diego, CA. Mission Viejo is only about four and a half hours from me, while San Diego is about 6 hours. San Diego may be a nicer place to spend a weekend with the family though. Who’s up for a road trip?

– How about a pin-up calendar from a manufacturer of medical image displays. I suppose you could consider these images risqué  if you were a radiologist.

– Medical News Today: “Cephalon, Inc., (Nasdaq: CEPH) announced that it has partnered with the American Chronic Pain Association (ACPA) and the American Pharmacists Association (APhA) to broaden the company’s When Good Medicines Become Bad DrugsSM program. This national education campaign provides patients, caregivers and the public with information about the abuse of prescription medications that affects as many as six million Americans and now surpasses the national use of most illegal “street drugs.”

– MobileCrunch offers a good look at the new Motorola Droid X complete with pictures and video. Check it out, that’s one cool smartphone.

– medGadget: “Researchers at Harvard have created programmable self-assembling DNA nanodevices. The devices consist of a single-stranded DNA molecule that together with pieces of complementary DNA self-assembles into a 3D nanodevice. “ That’s some seriously cool, and scary technology. According to Don Ingber, co-investigator and director of the Wyss Institute “This new self-assembly based nanofabrication technology could lead to nanoscale medical devices and drug delivery systems, such as virus mimics that introduce drugs directly into diseased cells,” – The entire press release can be found here.

– Soft Sailor Technology News and Reviews: “RIM is doing fine on the smartphone market as the company has shipped its one hundred millionth device in the past quarter. The company sold 11.2 million BlackBerry smartphones which represents a 43% increase from last year.” – I think the death of RIM has been grossly overstated.

– If you’re interested in cloud computing make sure to check out the GigaOM site covering Structure 2010. Structure 2010 was a conference at the Mission Bay Conference Center in San Francisco focusing on cloud computing. GigaOM has some great video.

– The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), in collaboration with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is offering an online resource to help physicians gain access to investigational drugs for seriously ill patients that are out of options. Access to the resource is free and can be found at the ASCO website.

– Check out Flash 10.1 on Android 2.2. – Neat!

– I’ve mentioned GlowCaps before. A little blurb over at mobihealthnews is reporting that “Partners Healthcare’s Center for Connected Health announced that Vitality’s GlowCap service raised medication adherence rates 27 percent for a group of hypertensive patients.” I’d like to read the “study” for myself and get more information. Until I have details I have to look at things like this with a skeptical eye.

– If you want to see how rugged tablet PCs are used in real life, then scoot on over to the GottaBeMobile site. They have a great write up on how the Red Bull NASCAR racing team is using the MobileDemand xTablet T7000’s to help them do pretty much everything. After watching the videos and reading the post I had to hang my head in shame. NASCAR technology is kicking the crud out of anything we’re doing in healthcare. Disgraceful.

– Fast Company: “Cigarette companies can no longer lure the young with claims of “light,” “mild,” “medium,” or “low.” And candy-flavored cigarettes have officially been banned as part of the larger Family Smoking Prevention and Control Act.” I don’t think mock tobacco or alcohol of any kind should be marketed toward kids. Period. In addition I don’t think pharmacies should sell alcohol or tobacco of any kind. Period.

– Life As A Healthcare CIO recently posted an article about standards for discharge summaries. It’s a very short post, but mentions the HL7 implementation guide for discharge summaries and gives a link to a sample discharge summary using the HL7 style sheet. It’s a nice layout, but something really troubles me about the hospital discharge medications section. The medication list is incomplete. It lists the medication and the sig, but not the route nor indication. Why is that? Maybe @omowiazard can help me understand that.

– Windows Live Essentials beta is available. Microsoft is really starting to rev things up in the the cloud. I highly recommend you check out what they have to offer if you haven’t already.

– I really enjoy reading what Warner Crocker has to say over at GottaBeMobile. He never disappoints, and this week was no different. He writes briefly about what system he uses to keep his data synced between the cloud and multiple machines. He also asks others to “Sound off in the comments and let us know what syncing services you use for your data. Tell us your reasons and how the service works for you. Tell us what you’d like to see happen differently.” There are some great comments that provide valuable information. Of course I added my thoughts.

– Just in case you didn’t know, the oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico just keeps getting worse. I saw a BP commercial on TV last night explaining how dedicated they were to seeing this thing through to the end and “making it right”. I wanted to throw my laptop at the TV. I don’t often condone violence, but I’m just about there.

– Just so we don’t have to leave on such a downer, here’s a funny little video:

Have a great weekend everyone.