Kozminski Techblog

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This month, Google is adding heart and respiratory rate monitors on Pixel phones to the Fit app, and it plans to expand them in the future to other Android phones. The smartphone camera relies on both features: it tests respiratory rate by measuring the rise and fall of the chest of a consumer, and heart rate by tracking the shift in color as blood passes through the tip of the finger.

“The features are only intended to let users track overall wellness and cannot evaluate or diagnose medical conditions” Google said.

Users aim the phone’s front-facing camera at their head and chest to calculate the respiratory rate (the number of breaths someone takes every minute) using the app. They put their fingers over the rear-facing camera to test the heart rate.

In my opinion, it’s a great thing to do. Often, especially these days people have a hard time going to doctors. It could be a really good thing to introduce to make peoples lives better.

However, I do have a huge concerns about this project. If the results “cannot evaluate or diagnose medical conditions”, than what is really the point of this function? People cannot relay on the results. Thus, if there were too high or too low, people would not know if this is accurate, so in the result they will have to measure it in the different way, so isn’t it without any sease? On the other hand, If the app shows that the results are good, than people cannot relay on this too, so it can even provide some missleading information.

So if the wrong result will cause someone’s problems with health/life, is Google taking responsibility for that? If not, what is the point of the app, if it does not help people and its results are not authoritative?

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Souces:

Techcrunch.com. 2021. TechCrunch is now a part of Verizon Media. [online] Available at: <https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/04/google-to-enable-heart-and-respiratory-rate-measurements-using-just-your-smartphones-camera/> [Accessed 4 February 2021].

The Verge. 2021. Pixel phones will be able to read your heart rate with their cameras. [online] Available at: <https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/4/22265004/google-pixel-camera-heart-rate-breathing-rate-sensor> [Accessed 4 February 2021].

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Atari is a company founded in 1972 in California. Their products such as “Pong” and “Atari 2600” revolutionized the market of consoles and PCs. Games such as “Pac-man”, “Space Invaders” and “Asteroids” are still luring in new players and also getting remastered and updated. The further models created in 1980-1990 were also very popular: “Atari 5200” and its successor “Atari 7800”.

The newest creation of the company is “Atari VCS. “Xbox X series” and “PlayStation 5” got everybody’s attention this year. The new product of Atari is also interesting, but due to Covid-19 its release has been delayed. The console which is coming in the next year will be a hybrid of a gaming console and a computer. It will operate on Linux system with an option to run on Windows 10. Internet browser is installed, so we can use the device like a normal PC. Despite this, Atari has been originally made for gaming. It will offer over a 100 classic games from previous generations of Atari consoles, but also will be able to run the newest releases. It will be based on AMD R1606G central processor using Radeon graphing processing technology. It will also enable to use a lot of accessories like mouses, keyboards amd microphones and on top of it all, there will be an option to plug the console to your own PC via USB or Bluetooth. Apart from external accessories, the bundle will include classic joystick (used in atari previous generations of games) and a modern controller. The new console will be also able to stream all the games you play on almost every streaming platform. On top of it all, Atari enables to customize the Ram and storage of the device.

This is certainly an interesting event, especially with the big premieres of other next-gen consoles around. Innovative approach gives the company a head-start. Atari will certainly catch by heart numerous players filled with nostalgia and desire to move to the past. This may be a beginning of retro games coming back to the market.

Sources:

https://www.techradar.com/news/atari-vcs-release-date-games-price-and-everything-you-need-to-know

https://atarivcs.com/

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/atari-vcs-game-stream-connect-like-never-before#/