and GPS devices to create a real-time
map of popular clubs and events to
provide answers to consumers’ ques-
tions, such as “Where is everyone this
evening?”
Another spin-off is Cogito Health,
which is developing Pentland’s re-
search to extract meaning from speech
behavior. One application that uses
Cogito’s vocal signaling platform is a
depression-monitoring service that
automatically processes care-manage-
ment telephone calls and allows health-
care professionals to proactively iden-
tify patients who may need support for
clinical depression.

An MIT Media Lab spin-off is n Tag, a company founded in 2002 that fell into bankruptcy before being acquired by Alliance Tech in March 2009.

Alliance Tech focuses on marketing intelligence at events such as trade shows and conferences. It offers event organizers sensor-laden handheld devices that can be used by event participants. The devices are worn on lanyards and support not only real-time attendee tracking, but also social networking. Conference attendees, for example, can exchange contact information by pressing a button on their n Tag device and later access that information on the event’s Web site, or they can be alerted by an n Tag vibration if they are close to someone who, according to preselected criteria, they want to meet. For event organizers, real-time data capture and analysis means changes can be made on the fly during an event, the success of the event can be measured, and paperwork can be reduced by using n Tag for activities such as attendee feedback.

The nTag solution uses proprietary
hardware, but Alliance Tech CEO Art
Borrego says future products will move
away from such technology. “Why in-
vest in more hardware when we could
now use what is in people’s pockets?”
Borrego asks. “Our next generation
technology will use smartphones and a
micro browser.”
As smartphones become the sensor
for many reality-mining applications,
wearable sensors are likely to prevail in
the medical field where the automated
analysis of real-time data captured by
sensors could prove transformational.

Chris Toumazou, CEO of Toumaz and a professor at the Institute of Biomedical Engineering at Imperial Col-

Digital plasters will
allow “patients to
leave the hospital,
but continue to be
monitored by
healthcare
professionals,” says
chris Toumazou.

lege, London, has developed the technology behind a digital plaster concept that is being used in patient trials at St. Mary’s Hospital in London. Realizing the constraints of existing wireless technologies, such as Bluetooth and Zigbee, particularly their high-power requirements and that any device built using them would be bulky, obtrusive, and possess a short operating life, Toumazou set out to create a low-power technology that could capture data from a body, even if it was ambulatory.

“We have commercialized ultra low-
power wireless systems and signal pro-
cessing, putting them together on a
single chip,” says Toumazou. “We call
this the Sensium technology platform
to which sensors can be attached. This
is the basis of the digital plaster.”
The digital plaster technology,
which has been developed by Toumaz
but is expected to be licensed and com-
mercialized, includes a plaster or patch
that sticks to the body and captures vital
sign data from patients. The data is for-
warded to a hospital information sys-
tem, where it is analyzed, interpreted,
and delivered to a nurse or doctor.

“Because of the economies of scale
of semiconductors we can drive down
cost and make digital plasters dispos-
able, avoiding problems such as infec-
tion, the need to sterilize plasters, or
the need to recharge their batteries,”
explains Toumazou. “Ultimately, this
technology will allow patients to leave
the hospital, but continue to be moni-
tored by healthcare professionals.”
Continuous ambulatory monitoring
could also provide important insights
into human health as the vital sign data
captured in real time from patients
could be correlated to show trends in
patient health that cannot be readily
understood using traditional methods
of data capture that are bulky and have
limited portability. Correlation could
also provide an extra dimension to
alerts, as the analysis of multiple, vital
sign data could predict adverse patient
effects that may occur in hours or even
days.

Further Reading

Burdett, A., Lakhanpal, A., McPartland, R., Nunn, C., McDonagh, D., Silveira, M.H. Key considerations and experience using the ultra-low-power Sensium platform in body sensor networks. Sixth International Workshop on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor networks, Berkeley, CA, June 3–5, 2009.

Olguin Olguin, D., Pentland, A. Sensible organizations: a sensor-based system for organizational design and engineering. International Workshop on Organizational Design and Engineering, Lisbon, Portugal, December 11–12, 2009. Olguin Olguin, D., Gloor, P., Pentland, A. Wearable Sensors for Pervasive healthcare Management. Third International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for healthcare, London, U.K., April 2009. Pappas, C. Three problems, one solution: attendee surveillance. Corporate Event Magazine, Summer 2009.

Pentland, A.

Honest Signals: How They Shape our World. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2008. Wong, A.C. W., McDonagh, D., Omeni, O., Nunn, C., Hernandez-Silveira, M., Burdett, A.J. Sensium: An ultra-low-power wireless body sensor network platform: design & application challenges. Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Minneapolis, Mn, September 3–6, 2009.

Sarah Underwood is a technology writer based in teddington, u. K.