Future investment trend: remote sensors

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(This is an edited transcript of the video.)

I’ve been covering the three Rs for the future: Robotics, Remote sensors and Regenerative medicine, and in this episode, we’re going to be covering remote sensors.

You may have heard in the news that Felix Baumgartner recently took a balloon up into the sky and successfully jumped to Earth from the edge of space. He wasn’t the firsts Felix to take a balloon up into the sky with cameras; that was Felix Nadar. He was the inspiration for Jules Vern’s Five weeks in a balloon. He did the first remote sensing in 1853: a sensor, a camera, remote, up into a balloon.

There’s another Felix that you’ve probably heard about. He went up into a balloon just recently. Once up into the balloon, the digital cameras, HD cameras pointing down and the digital cameras on his body filmed what was happening as he was falling back to Earth. But do you know that they were also monitoring him from the ground as well with remote sensors?

You see, remote sensors have come a long way since 1853. Felix Baumgartner … boy he went through the sound barrier; it was an exciting ride. Did you get a chance to see it? I’ve got a couple of clips here (watch video).

This is a great example of looking into the future using technology to go to the edge of space. How far up was Felix Baumgartner? About 10 times higher than your average jumper. People that go skydiving go at about 12,000-13,000 feet; he was 120,000 feet.

So he was coming down and these sensors were going like crazy. His health was being monitored from the ground to make sure he was OK, and providing great information to be used by astronauts from the space station or from future space missions in case of emergency – could humans survive? Could they plummet to earth without a space craft and survive? This is part of what this was to prove, the science of it. He proved it could be done. Let’s see what happens in the future.

So what’s this got to do with remote monitoring?

Well, Felix had strapped to his body a kit that was underneath his space suit from Equivital. Now Equivital makes a little strip that you wear against your skin and it monitors your health signs. They use it in sports, they use it for healthcare; it’s a tiny little block that monitors all sorts of things and it’s signal can be transferred remotely, and this is what Felix was wearing.

This is a UK company, they’re private right now. I suggest they will be going public sometime in the near future. It’s a great invention; it’s going to be used in the military, in research and science, in aged care, out of hospital care – this is a big trend and Equivital is on the leading edge of this. You should check them out. Probably one of the best ways to do this is just a few days ago, their CEO appeared on the BBC news in a session called How did Felix Baumgartner’s heart cope in record jump. It’s a great story and it’s an example of remote monitoring and health.

Changing health care

About 50% of all the hospital visits for health in Australia are unnecessary. If doctors wanted to monitor you, they could give you one of these little boxes, send you home, and they would be alerted if there was a problem, so this remote monitoring is going to be a major initiative by the Federal Government right here in Australia in the future, I can tell you that right now. It’s going to save us billions and make our lives better.

One of my friends is a medical futurist at a company called Care Innovations, a joint venture company (a merger between Intel and GE health care), and he’s advising the Government about using these technologies and one of the first ways these technologies is getting deployed right here in Australia is in aged care facilities.

How do we monitor those needing aged care, make sure that they’re healthy, but not invade their privacy? This is one of the products that Care Innovations came up with: QuietCare. It uses passive infrared sensors and a computer system that monitors the aged care person in their home or at their facility, to make sure that they’re getting up at their regular times, that they’re using the facilities, that they’re feeding themselves, that they’re going to the kitchen, their overall movement – are they sitting in front of the TV or are they getting up and moving around – those sorts of things. This is a very low-cost device. They’re not video cameras, they just use passive infrared technology, they map your body. And there are alerts; if someone hasn’t moved in a set period of time, you can alert an aged care provider.

This is going to be a major trend and there are some companies on the leading edge of this.

What I’ve told you today is just scratching the surface, but it is going to help our healthcare sector tremendously.

That’s the second of our three Rs of future investing. Next will be Regenerative Medicine; growing spare body parts in the lab – it’s coming, it’s already happening here in Australia.

Important: This content has been prepared without taking account of the objectives, financial situation or needs of any particular individual. It does not constitute formal advice. Consider the appropriateness of the information in regards to your circumstances.

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