APPLE ANNOUNCES RESEARCHKIT, WHICH USES IPHONES TO GATHER ENORMOUS DATA
SETS FOR SCIENTISTS
PARKINSON'S
DISEASE, DIABETES, ASTHMA—RESEARCHKIT MAKES IT POSSIBLE FOR LARGE-SCALE DATA
COLLECTION FROM ANYONE WITH AN IPHONE.
At 9TH MARCH 2015 Apple event, Apple senior vice president of operations Jeff
Williams took the stage to announce ResearchKit, a framework made specifically
for medical research. Basically, it transforms the iPhone, Apple Watch, and
HealthKit into an opt-in
tool for research
institutions. It has the potential to change the world.
Apple says it worked
with Mount Sinai, Stanford Medical, theUniversity of Oxford, Penn Medicine, and other institutions to build health-monitoring applications for ResearchKit, which will be open
source. For example, one of the early apps developed with the framework is
called mPower. It uses tapping—like, you jab at a button on the screen multiple
times—to subtly detect the presence of hand tremors, a telltale sign of
Parkinson's disease. Another example: the phone can conduct gait and balance
tests if you put your iPhone in your pocket before you go for a walk. Not only
can it help doctors diagnose patients and track their activity, but it provides
the infrastructure that allows researchers to siphon up untold amounts of
health data.
"Numbers are
everything," Dr. Eduardo Sanchez of the American Heart Association says on Apple.com. "The more people
who contribute their data, the bigger the numbers, the truer the representation
of a population, and the more powerful the results. A research platform that
allows large amounts of data to be collected and shared—that can only be a
positive thing for medical research."
ResearchKit will be
available to the public next month. The first five apps—which help fight
asthma, Parkinson's, diabetes, breast cancer, and cardiovascular disease—are
available for developers starting today.
BY CHRIS GAYOMALI
http://www.fastcompany.com/3043411/tech-forecast/apple-announces-researchkit-which-uses-iphones-to-gather-eno
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