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In African Villages, Phones Can Become Ultrasound Scanners
- ggm 7y agoThis is the kind of investment in technology I think Bill & Melinda Gates should be remembered by, as well as their investment in vaccines and contraception. Great stuff ( and well done to the inventor)
- kken 7y agoJonathan Rothberg should have enough money to invest of his own. He is behind several dna sequencing companies.
- sametmax 7y agoSure. As long as we remember the insults, lies and corruption as well. It's too easy to just forget bad past behavior just because suddenly they behave humanly.
- wDcBKgt66V8WDs 7y agoI'm out of the loop here, someone elaborate? I know about MS etc but is this a reference to B&MGF?
- jessemillar 7y agoRemember, yes. Scream from the rooftops louder than the positives, no. Don't forget that insults, lies, and corruption very much fall under the "behave humanly" category as well. We ain't perfect.
- mncharity 7y agoAt a tech meetup a while back, I chatted with someone who had just finished reading a book about Disney. They were lit up and enthused. Walt was a saint; Disney Corporation is a distillation of sunlight and laughter; its motivation and impact on the world is bringing joy to children. I wasn't sure what to say. Perhaps I mumbled something like "I always worry when I haven't seen nuance, that I've noticed only one face of something".
- snibidySnib 7y agoOh, I dunno. Disney's worst traits are probably the cover up of deaths and accidents at their parks, and how litigious they are about branding and intellectual property infringement. Also "disneydvd" as a format is a bit overdone. Other indiscretions are pretty minor. Like, on one hand, most of their parks (especially Orlando) are staffed by mostly gay males, which kind of flies in the face of the wholesome midwestern family fun concept, when you try to scratch the surface about what shape that takes when the rubber meets the road. And on the other hand, you have the Nazi characters in 1940's era cartoons, and other cultural improprieties (like disgruntled animators inserting lewd imagery into feature films, or ham fisted multi-cultural franchises) in their animation over the years, but hey, no one's perfect, right? For a media company, this is splitting hairs. It's not like they're dropping bombs on orphanages, or blockading third world nations.
- jwr 7y agoI had similar thoughts, but then I started realizing that investing in fighting malaria or cheap ultrasound scanners will matter little if in 30-50 years much of our planet becomes uninhabitable, which is now nearly certain unless we take immediate action. These days I think almost all resources should be thrown into inventing and developing carbon capture technologies. I don't mean to belittle the achievement or sound harsh, but when thinking of priorities one has to consider what will happen if something is not done.
- azinman2 7y agoYou can walk and chew gum at the same time...
- Gibbon1 7y agoAll these things need to be done. My thoughts center around how do you provide a decent sustainable existence for the other 2-3 billion people on earth[1]. There are a lot of things that need to be done to make that happen. Really affordable basic healthcare is one of those things. [1] Hint we can't do this via the raw growth and exploitation used to lift the first billion people out of poverty.
- jwr 7y agoYes, all these things need to be done. But, again, most of these things will matter little if in 30-50 years much of our planet becomes uninhabitable, which is now nearly certain unless we take immediate action. Those 2-3 billion people on earth you mentioned? Most of those live in the tropical zones and if we do not concentrate on fighting climate change NOW, will not have a place to live. Healthcare will be a secondary issue.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y agoAnd here I think our highest priority should be stopping the heat death of the universe. Makes global warming seems really small in comparison, no use spending energy on it.
- aaron695 7y agoIt has nothing to do with the phone or the software it's the device, which if you could get down to a hundred $ or so it could be used by farmers of livestock. This could be a revolution, but the Ultrasound Scanners need to be in the hands of low income farmers then imagine how quickly the dam ecosystem would develop across to humans. I've been looking to get a cheap one from China, but you can't, I'm not sure why, but perhaps it needs a certain chip that is not made cheaply yet. There are DIY's around but seem immature. If you want to change the world, get the price down for use on animals. This is a good first step, but while the medical community is in change it'll move at a snail pace which means a lot of people will die.
- mtw 7y agoI'm not sure you can mass market it. You need medical knowledge to make sense of ultrasound images. Unless you plan to use it for something else than medical
- bluGill 7y agoA lot of farmers have a surprising amount of medical knowledge. It is common for farmers to do a lot of simple medical procedures on their animals. Large farmers in the US already have ultrasound machines for their cows - they don't need to know everything about how to read them to know signs that mean call in help (thus saving a lot of money)
- close04 7y agoKnowledge of animal anatomy or certain medical procedures are no help in trying to decipher an ultrasound image. I don't think you can just plop an ultrasound scanner into a farmer's hands and have them to do anything truly useful with it, to justify the investment. Not without training. One option would probably be to have a doctor remotely in a "command center" just looking at these as they are uploaded from the field, and relaying the diagnosis back to the farmer.
- bluGill 7y ago
- 1023bytes 7y agoOnly works with Apple products? That's rather out of touch.
- tim333 7y agoGuess if you can afford a $2000 scanner you can afford a $200 used iPhone.
- itajaja 7y agoandroid is currently under development
- qwerty456127 7y agoI too doubt iPhone is the cheapest capable smartphone and the most cost-effective way to do whatever it can do.
- mschuster91 7y agoNot really. The thing with Apple devices is that you can be relatively sure it will work and you only have to test against a couple devices. For Android handsets? Different and vastly larger beast. There's so much that may or may not work: the USB port must support OTG/Host on the hardware side, which is already a hit-and-miss. The port must be able to supply the power required for the ultrasound. Then the Android stack must support USB OTG - and that must have been properly tested during manufacturing. And then the vendor must have compiled the Linux kernel below Android with support for uvcvideo (which is not standard enabled in cheap phones). Then the CPU and video unit must be powerful enough to run the software with video playback.
- u543fds 7y agoFirst time that I see that something can be connected to an IPhone. I wonder if you need special privileges from Apple, or there is an API available that can do some data (serial ?) transfer.
- mtw 7y agowhat do you mean? You can connect an FLIR to an iPhone to get thermo reading. You can connect a payment terminal to an iPhone for credit card processing. There's the 1inch DXO camera etc.
- saagarjha 7y agoI don’t think there is any public API for this: you probably have to be in the MFI program to send data through the Lightning port.
- Maxious 7y ago"iOS app developers do not need to join the MFi Program. Everything app developers need is in the External Accessory Framework" https://developer.apple.com/documentation/externalaccessory/easession https://developer.apple.com/documentation/externalaccessory/... Technically there is a serial cable you can buy for hobbyist/personal/internal use but "Under current Apple policy this cable may not be used with apps sold on the App Store." https://redpark.myshopify.com/products/serial-cable-l2-db9v https://redpark.myshopify.com/products/serial-cable-l2-db9v
- saagarjha 7y agoI thought the hardware manufacturer needed to get MFI approval allow for developers to distribute apps that rely on ExternalAccessory?
- veza 7y agoThis is beautiful. As a developer this is the kind of app I would like to work on, that has a direct good impact on people's life. I know there are all kinds of lists on github. Is there a list of companies that are inherently good (I know it's subjective) and are hiring developers?
- joshz404 7y agoAs an engineer working in non-profit health, just remember the grass is always greener.
- watermans 7y agoDoes this mean you feel that your work is not altruistic? Would you mind elaborating on that? Some days I feel like I’d rather work for a non-profit than where I am.
- kryogen1c 7y agoHaving worked in a government organization (military) for 10 years, i will guess. I think the point is not that one is not better than the other, simply that they are different. Each coin has two sides, and double edged swords cut both ways. If youre flush with cash, you might feel void of meaning. If youre helping children, you feel fulfilled but frustrated by what little it would take to accomplish so much more.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- Aromasin 7y agoReminds me of the Japanese idea of 'Ikigai' [1]. Basically what you describe - most careers end up fulfilling you in one way, but leave you devoid in another. [1]http://theviewinside.me/what-is-your-ikigai/ http://theviewinside.me/what-is-your-ikigai/
- coderintherye 7y ago
- connorcodes 7y agoI am glad people are using butterfly in remote areas rather than just in hospitals where they already have the ultrasound tech.
- mariagor 7y agoHi guys, Butterfly is growing and we are hiring senior engineers on a variety of teams! Check out some openings here https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/4Catalyzer/butterfly-network https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/4Catalyzer/butterfly-net... Also, feel free to send me an email or send your application directly to my email maria@butterflynetinc.com
- etjossem 7y agoFor even more context here: they're part of a biotech incubator called 4Catalyzer. The other companies are also working on potentially life-changing products too, including cancer drugs and seizure detection. Lots of possible roles, take a look!
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- _trampeltier 7y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14869138 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14869138 2 years ago build somebody a simple ultrasonic scanner with a Raspberry Pi. Anyway it's great. A lot of such tech is just expensive .. because it is since ever and customer pay the price.
- ToBeBannedSoon 7y agoI don't understand why this ultrasound scanner needs a user license except for exploitative reasons. It's what crooks would do.
- jes 7y agoUltrasound systems are medical devices. There are limits on power levels for patient safety and to ensure efficacy. To my knowledge, licensing here is an attempt to protect patient safety.
- ToBeBannedSoon 7y agoPhony argument. An electronic thermometer and blood pressure monitor ensure safety too and they never need a license. Do x-ray machines need a license? This ulrasound device by definition doesn't even emit radiation. This company is conning its users.
- atpat 7y agoIf you actually read the FAQ on the website (https://www.butterflynetwork.com/pricing https://www.butterflynetwork.com/pricing) you'll see that you don't need a license to continue using the product: > Your Butterfly iQ will remain functional even without a subscription. You can continue to scan in all 19 applications, but will not be able to upload new images. You will have full access to all images in the cloud that were previously saved.
- ToBeBannedSoon 7y agoThey're forcibly charging for the first year of cloud subscription, and this still makes it a con.
- jes 7y agoThermometers and blood pressure monitors are passive devices. Ultrasound systems do emit radiation, in the form of ultrasound vibrations from a transducer of some kind. In the ultrasound industry, there are two measurements, mechanical index (MI) and thermal index (TI) used to characterize the power being transmitted into human tissue. Clinical ultrasound manufacturers usually have a lab (AP&I "Acoustic Power and Intensity") to measure these parameters to stay within what are thought to be safe limits. You can believe they are conning their users, but if you want to manufacturer and sell ultrasound systems, you generally have to comply with many different regulations.
- frandroid 7y agoGoodbye to India's hopes to control ultrasound scanning of pregnant women to prevent gender selection. :(
- rmason 7y agoFun fact - Tim O'Reilly tweeted that this tool came about from a discussion at one of his FOO Camps.