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Microsoft's Emma Watch Is a Game-Changer For People With Parkinson's (betanews.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Called "Emma," it is a wrist wearable that can help people suffering with Parkinson's disease. The device is named after the Parkinson's sufferer that helped Haiyan Zhang, Innovation Director at Microsoft Research, create the device. What exactly does it do? Well, the incurable disease causes body tremors in those inflicted, and as a result, Emma has very shaky hands. This disease makes it impossible for her to draw straight lines or write legibly. With the wearable on her wrist, however, normal writing and drawing is possible. Remarkably, how it works isn't 100 percent known. "While the wait for a cure continues, Zhang has created what she hopes could be a 'revolutionary' aid for reducing tremors. The Emma Watch uses vibrating motors -- similar to those found in mobile phones -- to distract the brain into focusing on something other than trying to control the patient's limbs. Put simply, Zhang believes Lawton's brain is at war with itself -- half is trying to move her hand, the other half is trying to stop it. The two signals battle and amplify each other, causing the tremors. The device stops that feedback loop," says Microsoft. You will want to watch this video.
Of all the things we shit on Microsoft for -- and rightly so -- Emma sounds really good and they deserve credit for it. Good on Microsoft for investing in such efforts. Now I will go back and use my real ID to criticize them for Windows 10.
If only the main company would listen to and use the results of their Research department.
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perhaps nobody figured out that those vibrations would calm parkinson's tremors? things don't have to be 'high-tech' to be novel...
Old Microsoft would care, since their money came from selling Windows. New Microsoft doesn't mind so much since more money comes from selling cloud services (azure), office (PC and Mac), and backend services (SQL, etc).
Bad User. No biscuit!
I have a friend with Parkinson's. I'd love to purchase one of these watches. I wonder if Microsoft intends to make them available now. Will this require a 10 year study and FDA approval? Or was it a one shot for public relations?
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If it wasn't for Microsoft, many of us here would not have a job. I am migrating a lot of Win servers to Linux, and I cut the maintenance time / effort by 75%. I would be more trembling if MS disappeared. What would be left to do once everything is perfect?