Microsoft Developing Hardware for Sleep Apnea

[roster]

Monitoring and Diagnosing Sleep Apnea in the Home

Sensors, search and sleep apnea on Microsoft Research confab's line-up
Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 7:42 am


Microsoft has spread itself pretty thin, as of late. But did you know the company is working on helping to remedy sleep apnea? That’s just one of the research projects Microsoft execs and invited researcher guests are slated to discuss at next week’s Faculty Summit 2009, its annual conference for scientists, researchers and educators.

Energy sustainability, climate change and the evolution of healthcare are among the main themes of this year’s two-day summit, according to the agenda. In previous years, the summit also touched on these kinds of themes — to a degree. But there was a lot more emphasis on products and technologies than on global agendas.

But there are a few more tangibly technological presentations on the docket, including the “Monitoring and Diagnosing Sleep Apnea in the Home” one that will focus on Microsoft Research’s sensor technology under development by its hardware team. The “Beyond Search with Data Driven Intelligence” session on July 13 will focus on the future of search, the agenda says, but with a twist. The emphasis will be on how “data-driven research can help advance the state of the art in the online world and present a vision for humane computing.”

Tablet computing gets its own session during next week’s Faculty Summit, with “demos from Microsoft’s Education Product Group — showing how many of the advanced technologies that stemmed from these (tablet/pen computing) investments have now been incorporated into the forthcoming release of Microsoft Office.” Microsoft Research is calling the tablet “software plus form factor” (a derivative of Software+Services, I guess).

The Softies are also slated to provide more details about Microsoft’s own ThinkWeek and Quest programs during the conference. In a presentation entitled “Technical Direction and Strategy at Microsoft – How ThinkWeek & Quests Work,” Microsoft officials are going to explain Microsoft’s “business-experience-technology-strategy alignment” via ThinkWeek and Quests and how Microsoft Research fits into these programs.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3296

[Rustyolddude]

Apparently Bill Gates also patented an invention to save us all from hurricanes as well.

http://gizmodo.com/5312045/bill-gates-p ... ne-katrina

[OwlCreekObserver]

Whatever Microsoft comes up with for OSA, I believe I'll wait for...oh, I don't know...about version 7.1 should do it.

[Guest JH]

Yea, like I'm gonna trust my sleep to MS....NOT!

JeffH, from hot New Mexico instead of hot Oklahoma (but it's a dry heat...LOL)

[Paul56]

Ah yes... Microsoft + sleep apnea should bring a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death".

[Wulfman]

Ah yes... Microsoft + sleep apnea should bring a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death".

When I first read this a little while ago, that's the image I had in my mind, but couldn't figure out just how to express it.
You did!!!


Den

[roster]

Ah yes... Microsoft + sleep apnea should bring a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death".

Good one Paul.

[Muse-Inc]

Ah yes... Microsoft + sleep apnea should bring a whole new meaning to "blue screen of death".

Precisely what I was thinking as I read the title

[kennethryan]

Huh.

Both my Resmed Elite and my Resmed Autoset will occasionally reboot itself when I cough too much.

I thought M$ already had their hands in it ...

Maybe Resmed was just a M$-wannabe.

[Goofproof]

Finely at last well have someone we can blame for the missing "M" data! Jim

[rogelah]

Well at least the BSOD tells the medical examiner what the exception address was when you croked! What happens if the little hourglass keeps spinning endlessly? Is that a sleep induced coma?

[Muse-Inc]

... the little hourglass keeps spinning endlessly? Is that a sleep induced coma?

Seems like it -- I'd been knownto fall sleep to that icon

[rocketdork]

I love to bash M$, but in reality, they've done a great job of getting PC's into the market.

When I started playing with computers back in the early 90's they were phenomenally expensive. A VGA (64x480 resolution) monitor would set you back nearly $2000 and the video card was another grand. The computers of the day were DOS based and required a pretty good education to just be able to use them.

Fast forward to today where a computer can be picked up for $300 that outperforms that computer of yesteryear. I'm crediting M$ for much of the change. They made a computer easy to use. It only takes a couple of hours to teach a total newbie how to get around a windoze based system well enough for them to email, surf the net and write letters. Usually in a couple months time, they are up with the average user.

While M$ has its problems, I have to give them the credit they deserve in creating an OS that is, for the most part, stable, easy to use and available to the masses. Without that interface that M$ provided, the computer as we know it today wouldn't exist. They've provided a platform that is compliant with a myriad of hardware and software that is unequaled in the computer world.

I hate M$ for many reasons, few of them have to do with the OS's or the hardware they provide. I prefer their mice and keyboard over almost all others. I've had the same keyboard and mouse for 3 computers now...they are reliable, functional and never lock up.

So, while I hate M$ for many reasons, I find myself gravitating toward their systems as the standard and am grateful that I no longer have to be intimately familiar with Autexec.bat, config.sys, modem init strings, interrupt settings and hardware installation packages that aren't compatible with other hardware I have.

I see their entry into the OSA hardware world as a -good- thing. At the very least, it will push the current manufacturers toward a better standard.

[kennethryan]

While M$ has its problems, I have to give them the credit they deserve in creating an OS that is, for the most part, stable, easy to use and available to the masses. Without that interface that M$ provided, the computer as we know it today wouldn't exist. They've provided a platform that is compliant with a myriad of hardware and software that is unequaled in the computer world.

Oooh, don't get me started.

... Too late, you got me started.

The only thing Microsoft brought to the computer industry was innovative ways to eliminate competition via shady deals, nasty monopolistic pratices, and outright coercion. Look up MS's interaction with STAC Electronics, DR-DOS, the ISO standardization of OOXML, the new Android-based Asus machine squashed real-time at the Computex Taipei show (interesting article at http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor ... 9161307529), the list goes on.

Microsoft showed the world that consumers are willing to accept computers that crash, have driver compatibility headaches, planned/forced obsolescence, and require an ever-increasing spiral of upgrades just to maintain a basic level of performance. Just ask the crew of the USS Yorktown how well Windows worked out for them (http://www.wired.com/science/discoverie ... 8/07/13987).

At my previous job, all the computers I used for "real work" (not email or memos) were Linux-based. The only time they ever got rebooted was for a power failure or office move. (typical 1 year uptime, bog-standard HP PC). Display cards, printers, network cards, all just *worked*, no drivers to hunt down.

My home machines include Linux-based file server, Linux-based email/web/firewall, and my working machines. Other than my desktop, the limiting factor on the time between reboots is house current. It's been years since I performed any maintenance at all on my file server (my email/web/firewall gets regular security updates). My desktop gets fiddled with all the time, just because it's fun.

I also host a server for my kids' former preschool - email, webmail, and web pages. Solid as a rock, even though I haven't even looked at it in well over a year. It's running on an old 500MHz Compaq Presario laptop that my dad was going to toss in the trash because Win98 got itself so wrapped around the axle you could barely move the mouse.

The notion of MS having any involvement scares me. They DO NOT build reliable software, not by any measure, but they DO know how to eliminate any competition that does.

I'll stop now ...

[Slinky]

MicroSoft involved in OSA software???? Gads, THAT scares the h*ll outta me! By the time the software is up and running after I turn my xPAP on, it will be time to turn it off and get up for the day! Every version of Windows is slower and slower to load than the last. And hackers LOVE MicroSoft!!! We can all croak in our sleep IF we remember to turn our xPAP on long enough before we go to bed, the hackers will hack into the software and shut it down just about the time we fall to sleep. You're all ticked off about the various proprietary data software amongst the various brands??? Wait til MicroSoft forces them all outta busines and you have NO choice but theirs!