Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Robitussin marketing phone app
Pfizer has a great marketing engine amongst the rest of the big pharma companies. Very early on, they realized that they should start developing applications that would be useful to their customers. One of the things that they decided to come up with was an application on the mobile phone that would tell you where…
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Mobile phone app for smokers
Pfizer has a drug in the market called Chantix (Vareniciline) which is used as a smoking cessation aid. It works through blocking the effect of nicotine on the brain. However, to supplement it they have introduced a free app called Plan Q. This application won the CIO 100 award and is a unique companion app…
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Video games and learning
There are many types of video/digital games such as adventure, role-playing, strategy, or the very popular – first person shoot-’em-up action games. Video games have always been thought of as a good pastime but nothing more. However, there have been many studies done that have shown value of games – social: to meet other players,…
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Pattern recognition by the brain
The brain is designed to find patterns and then correlate it with the understanding of the world. This comparison is important since comparing fruit like images, sounds or feels with previous fruits eaten as food means survival. Quickly deducing that the long string hanging from the tree is actually a snake will also make for…
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Electrochemical sensors
Electrochemical assays have typically suffered from poor sensitivity compared to optical technology. In addition, they sometimes have a large background signal which makes detection of analyte difficult. However, the ability to detect the analyte in turbid or complex signal is the holy grail that is usually very difficult with optical methods. Many laboratories have struggled…
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Licensing new technology
It is surprisingly difficult for most companies to list what “new” technology they need. Pharmaceutical companies especially struggle with this item. Can they categorically state a specific item is not of interest to them if the company advertising company tells them this is “new” technology ? Or how does a small company approaching a big…
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Small convenient medical devices
The thinking is that sophisticated devices are needed for some biomarker studies and medicine. However, it is relatively simple to build some devices thought complicated with materials that are commonly available in electronic shops. For example, measurement of alcohol used to require sophisticated gas chromatography. With commonly available sensors, like a “MQ3 gas sensor” available…
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Photoacoustic imaging
It is difficult to image at high resolution using conventional optics to any reasonable depth below the skin. There are many ways to counteract this and one unique method is called photoacoustic imaging. This method was invented by Lihong Wang at Washington University in St Louis. The phenomenon of acoustic imaging is fascinating use of…
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Low cost 3D Scanner at Home
Another choice for 3D scanner is to build your own with some software, some simple things and a $25 laser level. Try this… Build a 30$ Laser Scanner : 5 Steps (with Pictures) – Instructables
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3D Scanning
There are many ways to scan in 3D and there are many uses for scanning in 3D. One of the major ones has been geology and civil engineering. Imagine when you are making roads, the one thing that you require is the lay of the land. This will enable the building of roads that is…
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