124220326
submission
Lucas123 writes:
Electronic medical record vendor Epic Systems is being accused of trying to derail proposed rules from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that would allow patients to access their healthcare information via APIs and share that information with third party apps, such as Apple Health. The rules would also require increased interoperability between proprietary EMRs through the United States Core Data for Interoperability (USCDI) standard, new API requirements, and data export capabilities to ease switching of health IT services or to provide patients their health information directly. Epic claims it's only trying to address privacy concerns, while critics say the company has a history of trying to thwart EMR data sharing so it can maintain its control over health information. This wouldn’t be the first time EMR providers have been accused of actively blocking industry measures to make patient information sharing simpler. “Yet again, Epic is information blocking – this time trying to trick public opinion with privacy concerns,” said Cynthia Fisher, CEO of the non-profit PatientRightsAdvocate.org. “In reality, it is a smoke screen to protect their market share, control, and financial interests. It’s all about the money.”Link to Original Source
123707478
submission
Lucas123 writes:
The former chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) under Presidents Obama and Trump is working with Accenture and others to promote the creation of a cash-backed cryptocurrency as a clearance and settlement tool for central banks. A cryptocurrency based on a blockchain ledger would be a cheaper, faster and more inclusive global financial system than today's analog-based reserve currency that can take two or more days to clear, according to the Digital Dollar Project. The race to integrate cryptocurrency into global banking is speeding up as public sector projects are already driving interest in fiat-backed digital tokens by central and regional banks around the globe but primarily in Europe and Asia.
122497880
submission
Lucas123 writes:
There is a growing movement among fintech companies, banks, healthcare services, universities and others toward disintermediating the control of online user identities in favor of supporting end-user controlled decentralized digital wallets based on P2P blockchain. Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is a term used to describe the digital movement that recognizes an individual should own and control their identity without intervening administrative authorities. The wallets would carry encryption keys provided by third parties and could be used to digitally sign transactions or provide access to verifying information, everything from bank issued credit lines to diplomas — all of which are controlled by the user through PKI. The blockchain ledger and PKI technology is hidden behind user friendly mobile applications. Currently, there are more proof-of-concept projects than production systems involving a small number of organizations. The pilots, being trialed in government, financial services, insurance, healthcare, energy and manufacturing, don't yet amount to an entire ecosystem, but they will grow over the next few years, according to Gartner.
116362992
submission
Lucas123 writes:
Like Apple and Intel, Amazon is piloting an in-house program for employees that in addition to healthcare insurance affords workers access to telemedicine and at-home visits from a contracted provider. While growing in popularity, in-house healthcare programs, which even include corporate clinics, are seen by some as an example of the growth in fragmented care or mimicking corporate care during the industrial era when factories had worksite clinics to get employees back to work faster.
103749389
submission
Lucas123 writes:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released data showing overdoses declined 2.8 percent over the past six months. Fatalities from heroin overdose (a component of the total opioid death tally) have now been falling for an even longer stretch—eight straight months. They are down 6.9 percent from their peak. Fatalities from the most common forms of prescription opioids — like oxycodone and hydrocodone — have, likewise, declined for eight consecutive months. They’re now 7.2 percent below their highest level. While opioids overall continue to drive the bulk of deaths, killing an estimated 48,400 people from April 2017 to March 2018, the number of fatal opioid overdoses overall fell by 2.3 percent compared with the year ending in September 2017, according to the CDC. Public health experts warned against drawing firm conclusions based on a half-year’s worth of data, but they are hopeful the curve is finally bending downward for good. “Still too soon to say, but it sure looks like we may finally have crested," said Dr. Andrew Kolodny, co-director of the Opioid Policy Research Collaborative at Brandeis University’s Heller School.
103747573
submission
Lucas123 writes:
Job recruitment firms place salaries for blockchain engineers, blockchain developers and blockchain project managers from $127K to $175 a year, and the growth rate for positions available has increased as much as 400% over the past 12 months. By comparison, software engineers earn an average of $137,000, according to Mehul Patel, the CEO of job recruitment firm Hired.com. Over the past 12 months, total job openings for blockchain skills have grown to 12,006, according to job data analytics firm Burning Glass Technologies. Other than salary, tech pros consider blockchain distributed ledger technology attractive because it offers new challenges and problems to solve, according to a recent survey by Hired. Positions in AI/machine learning, devops and blockchain will continue to be on the cutting edge of technology, and a priority for hiring needs, Patel said.
99397563
submission
Lucas123 writes:
The concept of universal digital identities, where zero knowledge proofs allow banks, retailers or even prospective employers to verify key information about you without access to anything more, is gaining momentum among software, financial services, telecom providers and others.
Through a cryptographically protected, blockchain network, a bank may request to know you earn above $75,000 a year for the purposes of a loan, for example; as a member of the universal ID network, your employer could then automatically verify only that you make at least that much without disclosing your actual annual salary. Or, a government could verify that a citizen is older than 18 for voting purposes.
Tech-savvy institutions like MIT have already started issuing graduates diplomas via blockchain-protected networks so that future employers no longer have to verify degrees and transcripts with the university.
Last week, IBM announced it had joined the Sovrin Foundation, a multi-national organization developing a blockchain to enable anyone to globally exchange pre-verified data. Separately, Microsoft plans to pilot its own blockchain-based digital ID platform that would allow users to control access to sensitive online information via an encrypted data hub.
99308381
submission
Lucas123 writes:
GPU prices have more than doubled in some cases as miners of cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, have purchased mass quantities of the high-speed cards in order to build mining rigs that are used to perform "Proof of Work" processing. Some of the most popular GPUs can't even be found anymore as they've sold out due to demand. Meanwhile, some retailers are pushing back against bitcoin miners by showing favoritism to their traditional gamer customers, allowing them to purchase GPUs at MSRP. Earlier this year, NVIDIA asked retailers of its hardware to prioritize sales to gamers over cryptocurrency miners.
96399265
submission
Lucas123 writes:
Researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Stanford University have developed a microfluidic device that can be used in clinics to sort out the strongest and healthiest sperm, which improves the chances of a successful in vitro fertilization. Traditional sperm sorting methods only track the fastest swimmers. The new device, called a Simple Periodic ARray for Trapping And IsolatioN or SPARTAN, is about about 4mm wide and 12 to 16mm long and uses a field of three-dimensional posts that create an obstacle course for the swimming sperm cells. SPARTAN ensures not only sperm with excellent motility is sorted out, but also those cells with normal morphology and better DNA integrity, according to Erkan Tüzel, associate professor of physics, biomedical engineering, and computer science at WPI. The work was funded by two separate but collaborative grants from the National Science Foundation and was published in the most recent issue of Advanced Science.
94645543
submission
Lucas123 writes:
While there may be a general perception that conspiracy theorists are prone to seeing patterns between seemingly unrelated things, a new study explains they actually suffer from a continuous cognitive problem called illusory pattern perception. While nearly half of all non-pathological Americans believe in at least one conspiracy theory, people with apophenia sense danger even when there is no pattern to recognize — their brains create their own. Illusory pattern perception has been linked to belief in conspiracy theories before, but that assumption has never really been supported with empirical evidence. The British and Dutch scientists behind the new study are some of the first to show that this explanation is, in fact, correct.
89968321
submission
Lucas123 writes:
John Goodenough, the University of Texas researcher who this week demonstrated new battery cells that are safer and have at least three times as much energy density as today's standard Li-on batteries, responded to skeptics who said the technology described in research published in a peer-reviewed journal, appear to defy the laws of thermodynamics. In an article published Monday by Quartz , various energy experts took exception to Goodenough's claims, even calling them "unbelievable." Goodenough is also co-inventor of the original lithium-ion battery. In an email to Computerworld, Goodenough said "any new discovery invites strong skepticism." In this case, the skeptical scientists wondered how it is possible to strip lithium from the anode and plate it on a cathode current collector to obtain a battery voltage since the voltage is the difference in the chemical potentials (Fermi energies) between the two metallic electrodes,. "The answer is that if the lithium plated on the cathode current collector is thin enough for its reaction with the current collector to have its Fermi energy lowered to that of the current collector, the Fermi energy of the lithium anode is higher than that of the thin lithium plated on the cathode current collector," Goodenough said.
89902503
submission
Lucas123 writes:
SDG&E has installed its first vanadium redox flow (VRF) battery substation as part of an order by the California Public Utilities Commission for utilities to solicit more utility-scale energy storage. The new substation can store 2MW of electricity, enough to power 1,000 homes for four hours. CPUC is requiring utilities to meet a target of 1.3GW of additional power storage by 2020. The projects are part of a trend involving utilities that deploy battery storage to supplement grid power during peak hours rather than drawing more electricity from generating sources such as coal-fired power plants. In January, for example, Southern California Edison (SCE) flipped the switch on what was the largest lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery storage facility in the world — a substation with 80 megawatt hours (MWh) of capacity. Bloomberg New Energy Finance forecasts massive growth in the energy storage market, first in utilities and then in corporations seeking to reduce their overhead costs, amounting to 45 billion watts (81 gigawatt hours/GWh) of energy storage.
89867377
submission
Lucas123 writes:
The Trump administration's newly released 2018 budget proposal outlining changes to discretionary would likely cut spending on renewable energy. For example, not only does the proposed budget cut the EPA and Energy Department budget by 31% and 6%, respectively, it would also not fund the Clean Power Plan and other climate change programs. With the CPP gone, the U.S. would likely see fewer retirements of coal-fired power plants due to carbon emissions and less impetus for the procurement of utility-grade solar power. The good news for renewables: the budget would not have any impact on the solar investment tax credit, carbon tax proposals or state-based solar subsidies, according to Amit Ronen, director of the Solar Institute at George Washington University. Additionally, renewable energy resources, such as solar panels, have gained too much momentum and aren't likely to be deterred by regulatory changes at this point, according to Raj Prabhu, CEO of Mercom Capital Group, a clean energy research firm. For example, even with the dissolution of the CPP, the number of coal-fired generators is still expected to be reduced by about one-third through 2030, or by about 60 gigawatts of capacity, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). Meanwhile, wind and solar are by far the fastest growing energy sectors, which indicates an appetite by utilities and consumers that is highly unlikely to be slowed by regulatory changes at the federal level, experts said.
89782155
submission
Lucas123 writes:
Laptop manufacturers aren't likely to offer higher capacity standard SSDs in their machines this year as a shortage of NAND flash is pusing prices higher this year. At the same time, nearly half of all laptops shipped this year will have SSDs versus HDDs, according to a new report from DRAMeXchange. The contract prices for multi-level cell (MLC) SSDs supplied to the PC manufacturing industry for those laptops are projected to go up by 12% to 16% compared with the final quarter of 2016; prices of triple-level cell (TLC) SSDs are expected to rise by 10% to 16% sequentially. "The tight NAND flash supply and sharp price hikes for SSDs will likely discourage PC-[manufacturers] from raising storage capacity," said Alan Chen, a senior research manager of DRAMeXchange. "Therefore, the storage specifications for mainstream PC...SSDs are expected to remain in the 128GB and 256GB [range]."
89433625
submission
Lucas123 writes:
Toshiba has begun shipping samples of its third-generation 3D NAND memory product, a chip with 64 stacked flash cells that it said will enable a 1TB chip it will ship this spring. The new flash memory product has 65% greater capacity than the previous generation technology, which used 48 layers of NAND flash cells. The chip will be used in data center and consumer SSD products. The technology announcement comes even as suitors are eyeing buying a majority share of the company's memory business. Along with a previous report about WD, Foxxcon, SK Hynix and Micron have now also thrown their hats in the ring to purchase a majority share in Toshiba's memory spin-off, according to a new report in the Nikkei's Asian Review.
