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Tracing Apps Rise as Jurisdictions Try to Flatten the Curve

Thursday, April 16, 2020Thursday, April 16, 2020By William Mapp
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Tracing Apps Rise as Jurisdictions Try to Flatten the Curve

If it’s Thursday, it’s time for Tech Talk with Mark Starling on First News 570. COVID-19 has been a focus of our stories lately, and this week we report on a possible breakthrough for ventilators and COVID-19 tracing apps. You can listen to Mark and I talk about tech every Thursday morning at 6:43 am Easter, LIVE. Be safe out there and stay healthy. Heed the words of the CDC and only go out for essentials.

Image Courtesy of Ars Technica

TRACING APPS ON THE RISE AS JURISDICTIONS TRY TO FLATTEN THE CURVE

Last week Apple and El Goog announced a cooperative plan to implement tracing technology to help curb the spread of COVID-19. Both companies are planning to include the ability to self-report if you are infected, and to notify you if you’re within a certain proximity of infected carriers of COVID-19. Apple and Google intend to de-identify any data and make the system opt-in only. We also reported on Pinterest releasing the How We Feel app for consumers to self-report as well. Apple and Google’s partnership makes sense as baking any tracing tech inside the operating system reduces barriers to smartphone users.

JAILBREAKING CPAP DEVICES MAY HELP VENTILATOR SHORTAGE

Yes, I mean that kind of jailbreak. I’m not ashamed to admit, I have sleep apnea, and a CPAP device literally changed my life. Better, and more peaceful sleep helped me lose weight, exercise more, and have sharper senses. As COVID-19 infections continue climbing, ventilators are becoming more and more scarce at hospitals around the country. Security researcher, Trammell Hudson, has hacked a $700, ResMed CPAP machine and turned it into a ventilator. ResMed says their AirSense 10 CPAP device is not a ventilator, but an inspection of the device’s firmware has many ventilator functions already built in. ResMed says it’ll take a lot of work to turn a CPAP machine into a ventilator. We’ll have to wait an see if it’s possible.

APPLE TRACKS TRAVEL TRENDS USING MAPS DATA

COVID-19 benefits when humans are mobile. Apple has launched a tool called the Mobility Trends Report that uses Apple Maps data to track the spread of COVID-19 by correlating people’s movements with infection data. The tool uses data from 69 countries’ major cities and Hong Kong. Apple’s tool also provides an export to Excel for researchers to use when predicting COVID-19’s infection spread. Apple is stating that the tool doesn’t compromise user privacy and only reports on de-identified movement.