Preview Of HealthTech At CES 2024: MagicMirror Of Health; Hologram Surgeon; Loud Whispers

Before the official start of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the organizers held an event called Unveiled to give the media a sneak peek of what to expect at the world’s biggest tech show, which starts on 9 January. Medtech Insight was on-site to demo and preview some of the tech solutions presented at the event. (Also see "Freshest In Agetech Headed For CES 2024: Meet Your Life-Size Hologram, Experience Being 80, Visit A (Really) Smart Home" - Medtech Insight, 8 December, 2023.)

Nuralogix

Nuralogix Corp, which develops tech solutions for contactless health monitoring, launched a new hardware solution called MagicMirror that allows users to assess 30 health perimeters such as risk of Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver disease, stress levels and anxiety health risk within seconds by “simply looking into a mirror.” The platform, called Anura, is powered by NuraLogix’s patented Transdermal Optical Imaging (TIO) technology, a form of remote photoplethysmography that detects a person’s face, identifies key regions of interest and extracts blood flow information that is combined with artificial intelligence data models to assess health perimeters.

“This is an attempt to get into the kiosk business,” NuraLogix’s Vince Traylor, director of sales and partnerships, US, told Medtech Insight. “This can go into a nursing home, a gym, an employer’s office – it’s a complete standalone.”

The MagicMirror is already being sold to businesses in China and is expected to be introduced in the US in the second half of this year. The company is awaiting US Food and Drug Administration clearance for assessing heart rate, respiration and blood pressure, which it expects to receive this year.

Holoconnects

Holoconnects’ CEO Andre Smith awed the media by beaming himself live to the event via the Holobox for a live chat from Amsterdam, thousands of miles from Las Vegas. The Holobox is about the size of a phone booth and displays a full-sized holographic rendering of a person, which gives the illusion of the person being in the same room having a “normal conversation.” That is also the intended use for health care settings, Steve Sterling, Holoconnects’ managing director North America told Medtech Insight.

The company installed two life-sized Holobox displays at Specialty Care Clinics in Dallas to connect orthopedic surgeons via hologram to patients in their clinics for post-surgery follow-ups.

“Doctors can’t always travel to where patients are and particular for non-touch visits, but they still want to have an interaction and they really want the patient to have the sense that they had some engagement,” Sterling explained. He stressed that the solution doesn’t aim to improve outcomes for patients, but rather improve patient engagement. The idea is that the patient will travel to the clinic and get required care by health staff members but also get the experience of a “live-like” conversation with the surgeon who will see the patient using the Holobox.

Whispp

Whispp designed a voice technology to amplify the voice of people who stutter severely and those with vocal disorders such a people with throat cancer or vocal cord paralysis. The founder and CEO of WHISPP Joris Castermans told Medtech Insight he stuttered himself as a child and during high school, which led him to start the Netherlands-based company. The company’s technology works by converting a person’s “whisper” into an amplified, natural-sounding voice.

“It’s language-independent because we’re using AI that’s based on audio compared to current solutions that use speech to text for non-standard speech,” Castermans said. Castermans hopes to partner with tech companies – Google, Apple or Samsung – to bring the voice technology to the US.

After a year of continuous headlines about ChatGPT and AI, CES 2024 promises to continue that trend of showcasing AI-based solutions. Medtech Insight will be on-site in Las Vegas to follow discussions focusing on AI and demo the latest healthtech and other digital health solutions.