Category: Gadgets

A software kit developed by Medic Mobile can be used in any type of environment to support healthcare.

Mobile Health (mHealth) provided by Medic Mobile is improving healthcare accessibility and quality in Africa. Using VMware, the American non-profit technology company, specializing in mHealth, developed a special software toolkit. This toolkit can be used in just about any environment and supports any language. It also functions with internet connectivity and without it, in the cloud or locally.

The software toolkit is giving African’s access to quality healthcare in the remotest parts of the continent.

The web and mobile tools work on a basic cellular phone. The software is giving health workers the ability to track disease outbreaks, register pregnancies, communicate emergencies, communicate with patients and keep stock of medicines.

The Medic Mobile solution is Linux-based and is made possible through a mobile network virtualized by VMware, running on VMware Player. The toolkit enables healthcare workers to gather and transmit patient data wirelessly via basic cell phones to the central clinic. This significantly cuts down on travel time and cost while making the delivery of quality healthcare better.

Medic Mobile CEO Josh Nesbit stated that the organization’s vision “is that the things that we know save lives should be made accessible to everybody, no matter where they are, no matter how much money they make, no matter to what social group they belong. The vision is global health equality.”

Since the mobile health technology has been implemented, healthcare has improved in Africa.

For instance, in Uganda, infant mortality rates continue to decrease every year. One of the major reasons for this is community health workers can provide better care. They can register pregnancies through a simple text message to the Medic Mobile system. They can provide details including the patient’s name, estimated due date and risk factors. A patient ID is automatically generated by the system and sends automated reminders to both health workers and patients, regarding scheduled appointments. If the appointment is missed by the patient, the system will notify the health worker to followup with the patient.

Presently, over 9,000 healthcare workers are using mobile health tools from Medic Mobile to aid over five million people in 23 developing countries. Using these tools, the healthcare workers are achieving solid results.

The new smartphone from Gionee will be equipped with a new encrypted chip for higher security.

Gionee M6 has a hardware security solution that could result in this Android phone solving privacy problems. Shenzhen-based Chinese smartphone manufacturer Gionee is the creator behind the new yet-to-be-released smartphone. The company is working on solving mobile security privacy issues by focusing on hardware instead of software. Gionee intends to achieve this goal with a new encrypted chip that will be incorporated directly into the design of the M6 smartphone.

Gionee claims that no other smartphone manufacturer works on hardware encryption.

Recently there have been may rumors regarding Gionee developing hardware security tech. Now, the company’s vice president Yu Lei confirmed that they are releasing the new Gionee M6 with an encrypted chip.

The basic idea behind this type of hardware encryption is that it is self-contained. It has the potential to minimize the attack surface for a device.

The company claims that its new security system will not be compromised like software level security. Software security is at a greater risk of attack because encryption takes place at the operating system level.

According to a news article from Hindustan Times, a source from Gionee said that “Most smartphone companies, such as those building Android phones, tend to focus their privacy and security efforts on the software side.”

The source pointed out that although some companies have implemented certain hardware security measure, such as Apple’s Touch ID, such features are still inefficient when it comes to protecting information stored on the smartphone.

“As soon as someone manages to pass through the lock screen, the information can be freely viewed,” said the source.

Gionee M6 is expected to be priced lower than its competition.

Gionee has not yet released the price of their new device, which is expected to launch in China on July 26. It is likely that the Gionee M6 will be more affordable than its competitors the Turing phone, Blackphone and Blackphone 2. If this is the case, it would mean that more consumers would have access to an Android phone with high security.

Presently, less than 10% of Android smartphones are sufficiently encrypted. Millions of current Android devices are infected with malware strains. If the Gionee’s M6 encryption chip works as well as they claim, this could be very good for Android’s mobile security future.