Ebola-Proof Tablet Developed By Google Set For Deployment In Sierra Leone 50
MojoKid writes Google has co-developed a tablet device for use by workers battling Ebola in Sierra Leone. The modified Sony Xperia tablet comes with an extra protective shell, and can withstand chlorine dousing as well as exposure to the high humidity and storms that are typical of life in West Africa. It can even be used by workers wearing protective gloves. Since even a single piece of paper leaving a high-risk zone poses a risk of passing on the infection, doctors on site at the height of the current outbreak of the disease were reduced to shouting patient notes to workers on the other side of a protective zone fence. Those workers would then enter the information into patient records. Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) technology advisor Ivan Gayton said this practice was "error prone, exhausting, and it wasted five or 10 minutes of the hour medics can spend fully dressed inside the protective zone before they collapse from heat exhaustion." To address the issue, MSF challenged a number of technology volunteers to create an "Ebola-proof tablet" to improve efficiency. This collective, which included Whitespell's Pim de Witte and Hack4Good's Daniel Cunningham, grew to include a member of Google's Crisis Response Team, and it was this group that co-developed the device.
Hardened gear is important (Score:5, Interesting)
Until recently I worked for a company which supplied industrial grade computers, including tablets. All the tablets we supplied ran windows. Google need to push hard to break into that market segment and developing a product like this is a good place to start.
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Although, since this comes from a house with no mods, that and five euros gets you a fancy cup of coffee at the Fivebucks.
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They're just trying to cover additional bases to make sure. In quarantine units in the US for example all your gear is cleaned after use by going through:
For something like Ebola you want to be sure that whatever your using is actually decontaminated otherwise you would just be better served sending it to the incinerator.
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So instead of simply buying a waterproof case or putting pens and paper under UV light for a few minutes they want high pressure water proof tablets which no doubt cost 200% more than the original item
Don't worry, it doesn't seem like those devices were modified at all.
My Xperia Z Ultra is already waterproof and both has capacitive touch and resistive touch, so I can write on it with a standard pen or pencil. The only thing they seem to have added is an extra case, which is probably unnecessary as well, my Z Ultra doesn't look like it, but it's basically indestructible.
and 5,000,000% more some UV lightbulbs and some pens and paper.
A pen and paper is nice, but you still need someone to enter that data into a database of some kind. Especially with Ebola, you don't wan
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Yes, wireless mic + Dragon or even just an audio file to transcribe at your leisure. Much easier than trying to type on some horrid little membrane keyboard.
We have these COWs at the hospital (Computers on Wheels although we aren't supposed to call them that because it's not politically correct although I've never seen why denigrating dinner was such an issue) that have keyboards that you can run through a dishwasher and all other manner of decontamination. They are horrid. Slow. Squishy. Like trying t
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Surely the real news is that Android tablets are now susceptable to human viruses.
Signed:
iBollocks.
Cool (Score:2)
Maybe I could use this tablet at work without the infection control officer (and charge nurse) complaining...
Why not a mike? (Score:2)
The tablet is doubtless cool! Restricting oneself to available hardware, the doctor could have a mike inside the suit, and the assistant could then easily take dictation outside.
The ultimate ebola proof tablet (Score:2)
Make a tablet so poor, no-one would touch it - hence, no ebola!
I leave the culmination of the joke to the reader, for cross-platform mirth,
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I think you are missing a lot.
You assume they have regular, reliable utility power, or generators they can run 24/7 in these places to power computers and what not.
Where is this computer to be located? The tablet can be used beside the patient, so you dont have to keep running back and forth to the computer to enter data, and that could be the difference between something being recorded incorrectly or not.
The tablet can also be disinfected by soaking in 0.5% chlorine, you cant do that with most other
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Adding to a culture that is already responsible for enormous amounts of waste... and you want to create more?
Its all well and good that you can buy cheap tablets to just throw away, but how many are going to be needed over the lifetime of an event like this? How often do they need to be cycled, and how much will that cost?
How do you properly and responsibly recycle these disposable tablets after theyve been used? You cant burn them, and they are potentially contaminated so you cant ship them elsewhere t
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Whoa! (Score:2)
An Ebola proof computer? An anti-virus program that works in tropical climates and even when soaked in bodily fluids?
Must have been developed by John Mcafee.
Interesting mod of a waterproof tablet (Score:2)
The issue is chlorine breaks down the the seals. All Google had to do is replace the seals with a chlorine resistant compound.
Xperia have a "glove" mode, so that takes care of that problem.
The result is probably much cheaper than an industrial tablet, or computer.
Tablet doesnt matter... (Score:2)
It's the software on it. There are almost no applications for Android that works well in the medical field, all of them are windows based.
They need to design good open source medical software not a ebola proof tablet that can be created in 20 minutes by anyone with a standard Samsung tablet and a waterproofing bag. Oh ebola on the tablet? dip it in this bleach bucket...... NEXT!
ba bum bump (Score:3)
Can't they just install anti-virus software?
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MSF (Score:2)
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)
If you're going to write the name of the organisation, write it correctly.
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Yes. This is in Africa. Any AC supply they do have will be 240V.
And will probably only work for 3 hours a day - most likely the 3 hours you least need it, and quite definitely the 3 hours you least expect it. However, you still have to pay for it for the other 21 hours you did not get it.
This is a combined effect of the afterglow of the colonial era when all forms of organisation were the work of the occupying enemy, and to be resisted at all costs, and modern Islamic teaching th
Nothing to see, move along. (Score:2)
Ebola-Proof tablet (Score:2)
Didn't know tablets could catch Ebola!
Disinfectant proof (Score:2)
good on google (Score:2)
There's a small, very important market for computers usable in biohazard situations. It's not easy making something functional that you can also guarantee can be completely disinfected.
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OTOH, it might be easier to make something that is sufficiently functional to take (and transmit to a server, wirelessly) the data and is cheap enough to then be disposable by dumping in the incinerator (bleach pit, or whatever technology is most convenient). For example, a sheet of cellulose-based fibres impregnated with visual prompts and orientation marks on which further marks can be placed as the medic