Wearable and Implantable Apps

With the European Union’s move to limit Google’s monopoly of the European search market and the U.S. government's proposed takeover of the Internet, we may be reaching the end of the unlimited expansion of the Internet.

This slowing expansion may include limiting or regulating the use of Internet apps to monitor and improve health – including the Apple Watch, Intarcia Therapeutics implantable matchstick –sized insulin pump for type 2 diabetes, Scanudu’s simple-to-used devices – a forehead scanner that measures your vital signs, Theranos technologies that allows one to measure scores of blood constitutes on a single drop of blood obtained by a finger prick, , and, of course, those saliva swabs that permit analysis of one’s complete DNA with subsequent genetic social engineering. I believe it is even possible to make accurate diagnoses given demographic, vital sign, body measurements, and patient-provided historic algorithms (see Richard Reece, Innovation-Driven Care ( Jones and Bartlett, 2007).

The idea behind all of these developments is empowering consumers with diagnostic information through mobile Iphones and over the Internet by providing them with cuff-less, pain-less, and less-invasive gadgets that may ultimately offer full blood, DNA, and vital sign information. This can be done on the fly with mobile Iphone clicks.

It will take time to slow the venture-capital, Silicon Valley –driven. mobile-phone, social media, and Internet app juggernauts. Apple is world’s most profitable company, with a market cap of over $18 trillion, and Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon are growing fast . Internet evangelists gleefully tell us Internet app people - including Silicon Valley billionaires, social media marketers, and network idealists will tell us their apps and gadgets will bring "value" to society and users. But government regulators, businesses and the unemployed left dead by the side of the road by use of these devices, those who worry about the security of our personal information in the wake of hackers, those concerned about universal surveillance of the patterns of our lives, and the humanists among us who believe there’s more to life and health than manipulation of data, aren’t so sure that we can leave our destiny and culture to clicks of buttons.