A look into the latest dental and general technology on the market

Headspace

(beginning at $12.99 monthly, Headspace Inc.)

Mindfulness, the state of being aware of one’s thoughts or feelings without judgement, can benefit mental health and wellness in individuals in an ever-constant connected world. Learning how to slow down, breathe and focus on oneself without distraction has shown to help individuals live healthier, happier and more wellrested. Headspace is an online content service that helps guide individuals through daily meditation exercises designed to take care of the mind and gain a fresh perspective.

Headspace can be accessed online through a desktop web browser or the mobile app available on iOS or Android devices and requires an account sign-up. There are many ways to interact with the content. Individuals can start on the Today tab that shows a recommended list of activities or meditations based on user feedback. Managing everyday anxiety and stress, sleeping soundly, being more active, trying something new and staying focused are among the topics that users can choose from. The content is a library of developed videos complete with pleasing visual scenery, animations, calming voices, inspirational and motivational messages from life coaches and mindful workout activities. Today’s Meditation sessions are limited and only available for 24 hours until they are replaced by the next day’s session. More content can be found in the other tabs: Meditate, Sleep, Move and Focus. While a limited selection of free content is available, unlocking the full library and the ability to download offline require a subscription. Users can keep track of their progress with total time meditated, sessions completed and average duration stats. Users can also add their buddies to share progress by sending a unique link to their friends. Notifications can be enabled on mobile devices to remind users to stay mindful throughout the day or to occasionally recommend content. Meditations are also available on connected smart assistants such as Siri, Alexa and Google. User progress can be synced to Apple Health or Google Fit.

Any wellness or self-care tools and resources require discipline and time in order to see the long-term benefits to overall health. Headspace provides the helpful content and ease of accessibility to guide individuals on the journey to being more mindful in a constantly busy and connected environment.

— Hubert Chan, DDS

NVIDIA Broadcast app

(free, NVIDIA Corp.)

Improving camera and microphone quality for virtual meetings is not always a simple task. Lighting, backdrops, lenses and sound treatment are tips of this massive iceberg; the costs and complexity can skyrocket out of control. NVIDIA, one of the largest makers of graphics processing units, leveraged its considerable knowledge to craft an artificial intelligence (AI) based software solution that boasts the ability to “[transform] any room into a home studio.” Targeted at those individuals who have some of their higher-end products, NVIDIA Broadcast aims to be a simple, all-in-one video and audio enhancement application. Users are expected to install the product, select the features they want and go. Broadcast was tested on a laptop with an i9 processor, 64GB of RAM and an NVIDIA Quadro RTX 5000.

Released in September 2020, NVIDIA Broadcast uses AI to allow users to access high-level noise removal, virtual backgrounds and auto-framing. Noise removal is the ability to remove background noise from a microphone feed, and Broadcast capably filters sounds like keyboard typing, dogs barking and breathing while enhancing human voices. The resulting audio is remarkable, with white noise completely silent and voices becoming crystal clear. Some minor audio clipping and skipping exist, but Broadcast serves as a significant audio upgrade over most out-of-box products. Virtual background removes the background and replaces it with game footage, an image or a subtle blur. While this is a feature prominent in many conferencing applications, Broadcast’s capability is more accurate, smooths facial features and allows for granular adjustment of lighting dynamically. Finally, auto-framing zooms in and tracks head movement, keeping users within the center of the frame even as they shift side to side. It falls flat in object tracking, but otherwise functions as advertised. At best, Broadcast will immediately and drastically improve media recording quality; at worst, it will be a situationally useful tool that can be enabled/disabled with a click of a button.

— Alexander Lee, DMD