Zango.com

If you are looking for a new way to waste some time while your surfing the web, then discover Zango. The website features free screensavers, video games and funny video clips. You can get free games like Chess, Foosball and Solitaire to name a few.

http://www.zango.com

Dragon Naturally Speaking

A friend of mine recently found a rewarding job counseling troubled teenagers in his local school district. The toughest part of the job was at the end of day transcribing all his notes for official documentation. He was literally spending his entire evening typing up notes which was taking away family time and just winding down. A co-worker told him about Dragon Naturally Speaking, an audio software that will translate your voice into text. We all know that you can always speak faster than you can type. He bought the software and it dramatically changed the quality of his life.

How does the audio recognition software work? This text translating software will first only work with the voice of the person who registered it. You will need to teach yourself a few commands to work smoothly, such as telling the software to place a “comma”. The coolest thing about Dragon Naturally Speaking is that it will cut through your dialect and eventually learn unique words that may be industry specific like PNL.

Has anyone ever tried this software? If so, what do you think about it?
For $99, you can purchase the software but the headset is sold separately.

http://www.nuance.com/talk/

Digital Medical Tango

How private is your medical history? I was recently visiting a friend in a local hospital and I discovered the hospital had just switched that day completely from paper medical records to digital records. They no longer will be using “paper” in their day-to-day operations. I noticed a group of doctors all standing around a computer in the hallway. I later found out that they were supposed to read the digital files on the computer in the patient’s room, but they didn’t want to because they usually read the files before they entered the room. This then lead all of the doctors crowding around the nurses’ computer in the hallway to read them before they entered the room. This incredible inadequacy of technology then created long delays for everyone.

What else will the medical switch to digital bring us? Besides the adjustment period for the medical staff, you as a patient should be concerned about the privacy of your information. One of the nurses proclaimed to me that with your medical history being digital your information will be easy to find on the net. She even stated that recently they opened up a site where you as a patient can log on and see your records and patient status. As we know from the Itsy Bitsy Spider article, any information that is put out on the net eventually we be discovered by search engines. Should we be concerned about your medical history being picked up even though it is being stated as being on a secure network?

I did have one sigh of relief when I recently went in for a check-up at my family doctor. He stated that they had just switched over to digital medical records but were transferring medical digital records the old fashioned way. They weren’t sending private records via email. This physician was burning the information to CDROM and then couriering them to other medical facilities. One of the staff members stated that they felt medical information is very private and this one step they were taking to keep it that way.

Medical facilities are finally getting on the digital bandwagon. On one hand going digital brings great convenience, however on the other hand it brings great responsibility. Let’s hope that medical facilities will take the right steps to protect patient’s rights.

Playaway, A New Audio Format

During my daily commute, I recently started listening to audio books on CD so instead of mindlessly listening to Howard Stern, I can learn something worth while. I recently listened to Love Is The Killer App by Tim Sanders and The World Is Flat by Thomas L. Friedman. Now a company from Chagrin Falls, Ohio has essentially put audio books on an Ipod Shuffle. Findaway World LLC co-founder Christopher Celeste explains that they have created a device called a Playaway which is a book that is preloaded on a digital player. The player is the size of a credit card and they mirror a book cover. They actually look like mini-books.

The player is unique because it works without a separate listening device such as a CD or mp3 player. Instead of downloading a mp3 or buying an audio book on a CD, you just collect these new fangled audio books like you would anything else. Unlike the traditional music player, which give you the ability to load audio onto them, the Playaway player is the book. Why is this a big deal?

It just points to the fact that people are still not ready to give up something tangible to represent an audio book. With explosion of Podcasting, the creation of homemade radio shows that you can download and put on your Ipod, consumers are expressing the fact that they want new unique content. Everything is going digital and now most audio books are being offered on audible.com, but a digital file is not same as an audio book. You can hold your Ipod with the file on it, but you still aren’t getting the artwork you would with a traditional CD or book. Now with Playaway you can the audio, the artwork and the technology!

Look for the Playaway to hit your local bookstores in October this year.http://www.playawaydigital.com/