Time - USA (2020-11-30)

79

MEDICAL CARE

A PERSONAL BUBBLE

Under the Weather IntubationPod

When Rick Pescovitz,

CEO of Under the

Weather, designed his

first personal plastic

bubble to protect

from the elements, he

thought, Who in the world

would wear this thing?

Then the pandemic hit,

and the semi-enclosed

space that the pods

create found a new,

all-weather purpose:

protecting frontline

workers. Hospitals

use the IntubationPod

($69–$99), which

covers the wearer’s

head and shoulders, to

shield both patients and

workers during medical

procedures, while longer

versions, which have

openings for the arms

and extend to the hips

or beyond, appeal to

teachers and police

officers. —ALICE PARK

SOCIAL GOOD

4G FLEET

Loon

Originally a Google “moonshot” project
conceived in 2011, Alphabet subsidiary
Loon aims to extend Internet access
to underserved locales by deploying a
network of giant stratospheric balloons.
Those balloons—each the size of a
tennis court—previously floated above
Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricanes
Irma and Maria and above Peru after
the 2019 earthquake. But this summer
marked the project’s first commercial
deployment. In partnership with local
provider Telkom Kenya, Loon’s network of
dozens of balloons now beam 4G Internet
across more than 30,000 sq. mi. of
central and western Kenya— making web
browsing, email and text more accessible
to those below. —JOSEPH HINCKS

EXPERIMENTAL

A NEW KIND OF INTERFACE

MIT Media Lab AlterEgo

AlterEgo doesn’t read your thoughts, but it can

enable you to communicate with your computer

without touching a keyboard or opening your

mouth. To use the headset to carry out a

simple task like Googling the weather on your

laptop, first formulate the query in your mind.

The headset’s sensors read the signals that

formulation sends from your brain to areas you’d

trigger if you had said the query aloud, like the

back of your tongue and palate. Then, via a web

connection, the device, designed by researchers

at the MIT Media Lab, carries out the task on your

laptop. To inform you of the results of the task,

the headset uses a bone conduction speaker that

only you can hear. Researchers found that the

device’s prototype was able to understand its

wearer 92% of the time. The interface is currently

being tested in limited hospital settings, where it

helps patients with multiple sclerosis and ALS to

communicate. —JASON CIPRIANI

ACCESSIBILITY

MIMICKING

SOUND WAVES

Earlens Contact

Hearing Solution

Most hearing aids do a

decent job of amplifying mid

tones but struggle with the

highs and lows, resulting in

sound that is flat and dull.

That makes it hard to follow

conversations in a crowd—

the so-called cocktail- party

effect. Earlens ($6,000 per

ear) upends the process,

nixing the amplifier entirely

and instead using a tiny

lens that sits next to the

eardrum. A microphone

housed in the device’s over-

the-ear processor picks up

sounds, which an algorithm

converts into vibrations

that are transmitted to

the eardrum. Put another

way: rather than turning

up the sound, Earlens

actually re-creates the

effect of the sound waves.

—MARJORIE KORN

MEDICAL CARE

AT-HOME

SAMPLING

OraSure OMNIgene Oral

OraSure is helping make

COVID-19 testing—and

quick results—more

accessible. The company

received among the

first emergency-use

authorizations from the

FDA for an at-home COVID-

19 sample- collection kit.

Instead of going to a health

professional and having

a swab thrust up their

noses, users spit into the

OMNIgene Oral collection

tube and send it to a lab,

which then turns around

the results in a day or two.

Such collection kits, which

anyone can order online,

could vastly expand the

reach of COVID-19 testing.

—ALICE PARK