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The Malta Independent | Thursday 26 March 2015
Sensor-based furniture improves office health Watch smartwatch, which will send hourly reminders to people to be more active. The research firm CCS Insight is expecting the product, which is scheduled to launch this month, to be “the most successful smartwatch ever“.
Melissa Jun Rowley
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ooner or later, the days of sitting at one’s desk idly or talking with a co-worker will be long gone. Two years ago, businesses started taking a cue from the sensor-based quantified self-movement by using technology and data to track employee activity. Of course, this all started to improve office productivity... but what about improving the collective health of an office? Smart Gadgets Based on the belief that sitting is the new smoking, companies are looking for new ways to keep their workers active, and the tech industry is aiming to fulfill that need. Apple CEO Tim Cook is touting health as the biggest reason for people to buy the Apple
Furniture with Sensors Another company poised to make waves in the office health and productivity niche is Tome Software, which created OfficeIQ - a software and sensor solution promoting an active healthy office place through the existing furniture products of Humanscale. “With OfficeIQ, we believe that sensors should be attached to furniture not people,” says Tome CEO, Jake Sigal. “So it’s nice to have sensors integrated into a desk.” Prior to launching Tome, Sigal was the CEO of the automotive app maker Livio, which he sold to Ford in 2013. During that time, his wife who works in corporate wellness said, ‘listen, you’ve got to do something to take your knowledge of tech and apply it to healthcare.’ And that’s exactly what Sigal is doing. “At Livio, we bought standing
throughout the day that would promote standing. So what we’ve done is we’ve integrated software on your computer, which can synchronise with your calendar to meet your personal goals. If you say, ‘I want to stand two hours a day or 15 minutes every hour, it can look in your calendar and say, ‘you have a call today. Maybe you should stand for it.’ Or it may say, ‘you’ve been sitting down for 45 minutes. Maybe you should stand up.’” The biggest concern people are having so far about sensor-monitored furniture is data and privacy policy. So what Sigal and his team are doing is asking consumers whether or not something seems like an invasion of privacy, and making sure that aggregated data is kept anonymous. A business using OfficeIQ can see the activity of an entire floor, but is unable to track what users are doing individually. Sitting could very well be the new smoking. To combat this, perhaps intelligent furniture can be the new personal trainer. Used with the permission of http://thenetwork.cisco.com desks for all of our employees,” says Sigal. “I’ve never met somebody who’s owned a standing desk that could ever go back to a sitting desk. So we thought maybe we should make a treadmill desk or our own desks. What we ended up on settling with was creating a company that makes software and uses sensors to connect with office furniture. So we approached Humanscale last year and launched the OfficeIQ product at CES in January.” Set to be released on the market this summer at a price point of $200 (€183), OfficeIQ has been integrated into Humanscale’s float desk, a standing desk that goes up and down. A dashboard on the backend shows who’s sitting
and standing. When someone is sitting, sensors in the chair and desk indicate the activity through a gateway on an iPad. If this person stands up, the status will switch from ‘sitting’ to ‘unknown.’ The desk will beep when it reaches the correct height standing height. For people wanting to lose weight, the dashboard shows how many calories are burned just from being upright. Stand at Your Desk “In order to promote standing, we look for motivation, ability and a trigger,” shares Sigal. “That’s the Dr. Fogg model of changing behavior. We wanted to try to make very small changes
Melissa Jun Rowley is a seasoned journalist and social entrepreneur focused on the intersection of technology and social impact. She is currently developing “Magic Makers,” a docu-series spotlighting teens using STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art & Math) to advance humanity. Melissa is also the Editorial Director of The Toolbox, a social change platform which aggregates and promotes digital tools for activism. On the startup front, she is building a new social giving ecosystem called Givvio, bringing together brands, celebrities and everyday activists to work together in teams to amplify their social good campaigns.
Online and mobile payments set to increase
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nline and mobile payments worldwide are forecasted to top three trillion euros in the next five years. Mobile payment is the growth leader of the online and the total payments market, with further growth expected following the launches of varying mobile payment solutions, icluding Apple Pay. The study, commissioned by Research and Market trends, stated that fast and one-touch checkout is a trend on the global online and mobile payment market, with one-touch solutions released by Amazon, PayPal and Apple Pay. Another trend is large payment companies preparing to separate from their e-commerce parent companies. eBay announced plans to spin off PayPal, while Alibaba revealed that it will let Alipay go public after Alibaba’s own IPO. The players that have intensified their efforts on the payments markets in 2014 are social networks and messengers, with Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat
launching peer-to-peer payments. Preferences for payment methods in different B2C (business to consumer) e-commerce markets worldwide have interesting local twists. With a few exceptions, in North America and Western Eu-
rope cards seem to dominate, while in emerging markets a number of alternative payment methods together with cash on delivery rival the credit cards. In China, online and mobile payments are dominated by local third party payment providers,
while in the USA credit and debit cards together accounted for more than two-thirds of payments in 2013. Another major online retail market, the UK, was also dominated by credit and debit cards in terms of payment methods in 2014. However, Germany falls out from this trend, with invoice remaining the leading payment method in B2C e-commerce sales and PayPal increasing its share. In Russia cash on delivery was ahead of credit card usage in online shopping and alternative payments such as PayPal and online banking show dynamism. However, in another emerging European market, Turkey, card payment dominates and grew rapidly in 2014. Other regions also show diver-
sity in terms of online and mobile payment methods used. In Latin America, credit cards are rivaled by the local banking method Boleto Bancario in Brazil and by cash on delivery in Mexico. Online shoppers in Africa’s largest B2C e-commerce market, South Africa, showed preference for both credit cards and bank transfer for payment, as revealed in recent surveys. Meanwhile, across the Middle East, cash on delivery was still used by the majority of online shoppers, but in the region’s major market, the UAE, credit card was slightly ahead of cash in terms of usage. For more information visit http://www.researchandmarkets.co m/research/962kqp/global_online
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The Malta Independent | Thursday 26 March 2015
Roderick Spiteri
Roderick Spiteri is Marketing and Communications Manager at MITA and editor of Malta Independent ICT feature
The Malta Independent ICT Feature
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hen applied correctly, technology can lead to unlimited benefits. However, we must be aware that with new uses come new risks and cyber criminals are always on the lookout on how they can exploit technology in order to make financial gains. This means that when technology is used to pro-
duce medical devices, we must ensure that security aspects are taken very seriously because now, technology has become extremely personal. Technology can also help us with existing products, such as furniture. In today’s article we look at how software and sensors are being used to improve office productivity, ergonomics, and the health of employees.
Buying things off the Internet has become a normal activity for many of us. In today’s feature we see how with the introduction of various mobile payment solutions online and mobile payments are expected to to top three trillion euros in the next five years. All ICT Features are available on www.mita.gov.mt/ictfeature
Security essential for IoT and networked medical devices N etworked medical devices linked to the Internet of Things (IoT) hold tremendous promise if security is built in from the outset, according to a new report released today by Intel Security and the Atlantic Council. The Healthcare Internet of Things: Rewards and Risks explores security challenges and societal opportunities for networked medical devices, including those that are wearable, temporarily ingested or even embedded in the human body for medical treatment, medication, and general health and wellness. The report makes recommendations for industry, regulators, and the medical profession to help them maximise the value to patients while minimising the security challenges originating in software, firmware, and communications technology across networks and devices. Networked medical devices may improve fitness, medical outcomes and quality of life. According to the report, one estimate of these technologies could save $63 billion (€57.5 billion) in healthcare costs over 15 years with a 15%-to-30% reduction in hospital equipment costs. However, the report finds the benefits of networked healthcare come with several main areas of concern: theft of personal information, intentional tampering with devices to cause harm, widespread disruption and accidental failures. “Networked healthcare can make the Internet of Things very personal,” said Pat Calhoun, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Network Security at Intel Security. “When a networked medical device is connected to a person, the health information that can be exchanged may dramatically improve healthcare, but the consequences of privacy and network security intrusions are equally real. Security should be built into the whole healthcare
ecosystem, from the device, to the network, to the data center.” The report provides several recommendations intended to help foster innovation while reducing security risks, including: • Security should be built into devices and the networks they use at the outset rather than as an afterthought. • Industry and governments should consider implementing a comprehensive set of security standards or best practices for networked medical devices to address underlying risks. • Private-private and public-private collaboration must continue to improve.
• The regulatory approval paradigm for medical devices may need to evolve in order to better incentivise innovations while enabling healthcare organisations to meet regulatory policy goals and protect the public interest. • There must be an independent voice for the public, to ensure patients and their families have a voice, the goal being to strike a balance among effectiveness, usability, and security when the device is implemented and operated by consumers. Download the complete report from: http://bit.ly/1Dy2sUm