Final Science Week Post: Best Invention of 2007?

Posted by Conor O'Neill on Saturday, November 17, 2007

How many people are going to plump for the jesusphone in their posts? If Steve Jobs is responsible,it must be magic. Except it’s not, it’s a very nice UI on a phone design that was out of date in 2006 in Europe. So if not a fashion accessory then what? I think the Science Week people really mean “new product” when they say “invention”, otherwise I’m going to have to go a read some science journals to find the latest cure for cancer.

2007 hasn’t been a great year for ground-breaking innovation since most things I’m familiar with have just really been refined. I haven’t heard about one thing that make me stop and go “wow that’s incredible”. I might do so when CUH stop sending out hand-written appointments and use a fancy thing called a computer and Microsoft Outlook to schedule x-rays.

I mentioned BiancaMed in a previous post and I’m going to nominate one of their developments as the Invention of 2007. In fact their whole product line should get the gong. I don’t just say this because I was in college with Conor Hanley and Conor Heneghan, their developments are the first step in an entirely new approach to medicine. Expect these guys to exit for a huge amount of money in the coming years (or buy GE Healthcare!).

The BiancaMed Overnight Sleep Monitor sits on your bed-side locker and measures your breathing patterns with no contact whatsoever. It can provide critical data to diagnose sleep apnea and other sleep disorders and medical conditions. It will be able to send that information via mobile phone to a back-end system that your medical practitioner can log on to and analyse. It is genuinely revolutionary and there will be a multitude of spin-off products from this including baby monitors and fitness equipment.

As someone who has slept badly since he was 6 years old I’d love to get access to this and maybe finally get to the bottom of it. As a parent, I know many people will pay a LOT of money for a baby monitor which may help avoid SIDS.

A bit more impressive than a poxy phone, isn’t it?


comments powered by Disqus