Best Buy® Offers $299 HTC Flyer Tablet Starting Oct. 1

MINNEAPOLIS, Sept. 30, 2011 - Best Buy (NYSE: BBY), a leading retailer of consumer technology products, today announced it is reducing the price of the HTC Flyer from $499.99 to $299.99 starting Saturday, Oct. 1. Customers can take advantage of this permanent lower price online at BestBuy.com and at all Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile standalone stores nationwide.

The HTC Flyer is a fast, portable, light-weight tablet that integrates the immersive and highly intuitive HTC Sense(TM) experience and enables content including videos, music, games and more to be easily accessed and enjoyed. The 7-inch (measured diagonally) tablet operates on the Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system and comes loaded with 16GB of memory.

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We've come full circle with tablet computers

I still remember the early days when the first slate tablet PCs were sold by companies like Motion Computing, HP, and Fujitsu. Early adopters purchased these expensive devices and walked around with a digital clipboard that was heavy and warm. Batteries only lasted a few hours.

Then, we saw the emergence of convertible tablet PCs because people wanted the best of both worlds. They wanted to type on a keyboard, but they also wanted a tablet PC. The original slate tablet PCs started losing ground to these popular convertible tablet PCs. People who had convertible tablet PCs mainly used them like regular laptops.

In 2010, Apple released the iPad and that changed everything yet again. Here we were, back to the original slate tablet design. This time, the iPad was fast, light, and the battery lasted all day. People (including physicians) gobbled up the iPad. Then, other devices running Android, webOS, and BlackBerry started appearing. But, many people still missed the traditional keyboard. So, they started purchasing add-on keyboards. Companies created cases that had a built-in keyboard. Before long, we were back to the concept of the laptop.

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Amazon Kindle Fire (for only $199!)

Author: Riley Alexander, MD, MBA

Despite the overall form factor and even the name being out there, Amazon still managed to sneak a few surprises into it's press conference today unveiling it's color tablet, the Kindle Fire. The biggest of these being the price: $199. This is huge. While many the list of tablets entering the fray seems to be growing by the second, essentially none have been able to get much below $400-500 for a release price. This tablet takes the low-cost approach to Apple's philosophy: deliver on experience and content, don't worry about specs--and I think it will do very well.

While many will look at this as more of a "deluxe e-reader" (and I don't think that's necessarily wrong or a bad thing), this device will offer a lot for the money, including Amazon's enticing new (flash-supporting) browser, Amazon Silk. Users will also have access to the Amazon Android app store. I can't see this not being a hit for this holiday season.

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If you're in the market for a color e-reader/low-end tablet, you may want to wait

Author: Riley Alexander, MD, MBA

While the existence of Amazon's Kindle tablet has all but been confirmed, we still don't know a lot the specific hardware details besides it's size and general form factor. It's looking like we won't have to wait too much longer--Amazon has a conference scheduled for 9/28 that will surprise everyone if it isn't about this color Kindle tablet.

Not to be outdone, it has leaked that Barnes and Noble has plans to update its very capable Nook Color this quarter with not just a hardware update to its current model, but an entirely new model. Very little is known about the new model other than that it is supposed to cost $349 as compared to the current $249 of the standard Nook Color. I'm betting that with a $100 price bump, this device will be larger and much more "tablet-like" than the emphasis on an e-reader with tablet features that the current Nook Color has. I highly recommend waiting to make your holiday purchase of either of these devices as the next models could be fairly significant upgrades.

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MIT Security Expert Shares Cloud & Virtualization Solutions

Here is a Free, Interactive Webinar about Cloud & Virtualization:

From Desktops to Devices: Securely Navigating Through the Cloud

Digital security expert and MIT research fellow Michael Schrage shares solutions to increase security leveraging virtualization and the cloud

Thursday, September 29, 2011
12:00 - 1:00 PM U.S./Canadian Eastern

The tension between information security and productivity has never been greater. To operate at peak performance and competitiveness, organizations need workers to be able to access resources in more places and ways than ever before. Traditional security strategies are being pushed to their breaking point by today's proliferation of work locations, types of workers, devices, and access methods.

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Health eVillages mHealth Initiative

Physicians Interactive and the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights Launch Health eVillages mHealth Initiative

First-Ever Consortium of Healthcare and Human Rights Organizations Providing Mobile Medical Technology to Challenged Regions Worldwide

Marlborough, MA (September 26, 2011) – Today marks the official launch of a historic healthcare and human rights advocacy consortium, Health eVillages, which aims to bring mobile medical reference and decision support technology to clinicians fighting to save lives in underserved regions worldwide. Physician’s Interactive Holdings, with its subsidiary Skyscape.com, Inc., in partnership with the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, will formally announce the creation of Health eVillages during this year’s Health 2.0 Conference. Health eVillages will be assisting healthcare professionals practicing medicine in the most challenged clinical environments, by providing them with mobile clinical reference and decision support tools for medical training, diagnostics and clinical references.

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iPad Revolution for Weill Cornell Medical Students

DEVICE REPLACES PRINTED TEXTS FOR 1ST- AND 2ND-YEAR STUDENTS, PROMOTES MOVE FROM PAPER TO ELECTRONIC RECORDKEEPING

NEW YORK (Sept. 15, 2011) — Weill Cornell Medical College students will now have a wealth of medical information and educational tools at their fingertips. Starting this fall 2011 semester, all incoming first- and second-year students are being provided with a new iPad 2 in place of the printed course notes and texts used by most students around the country.

Students will now be able to download course materials, see video or hear audio recordings of lectures, submit electronic course evaluations, access their grades, collaborate with other students, and save their notes and coursework.

"I am very proud that Weill Cornell is one of the first medical colleges in the country to embrace this technology," says Dr. Carol Storey-Johnson, senior associate dean of education at Weill Cornell Medical College. "The iPad will open a world of new learning opportunities for students and dramatically expand the way we train and educate a new generation of physicians. "

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iPads in medical schools - are they improving education?

Recently, I had a chance to chat with a number of medical students about their use of iPads in medical school. So many medical students are using iPads in the classroom (regardless of whether their school has an official iPad program).

Last year, the University of California Irvine started giving iPads to first-year medical students. These iPads were loaded with first-year curriculum. Have they made a difference in educational outcomes?

Take a look at how UC Irvine is using the iPad:

UC Irvine’s iMedEd Initiative will foster highly individualized and small-group learning for a richer medical school experience. The program, targeted initially at first-year students, aims to transform the classic lecturer-passive listener model with digital textbooks, online curricula, audio and video libraries, podcasts and other technological advances such as digital stethoscopes and portable ultrasound units.

The pilot program uses Apple’s iPad to digitally house the entire first-year curriculum, outlines, handouts and essential textbooks. The devices, which are provided to each entering student, also are loaded with hundreds of medical applications, note-taking and recording capabilities, and many other tools that complement diverse learning styles. Short, topic-based podcast lectures can be reviewed as often as desired as preparation for small-group discussions.

In addition, the encrypted tablet is a platform for complementary technologies that enhance the curriculum. Students using digital stethoscopes can listen to a patient’s heart then transmit the audio and visual data for comparison with a library of heart beat sounds, allowing for better interpretation and increased comprehension. 

The iMedEd Initiative also is integrating portable ultrasound devices into the curriculum, providing students with a noninvasive diagnostic tool to examine internal organs and blood flow. Specially designed iPad applications let students consult video tutorials as they perform bedside ultrasounds, enabling them to review normal and abnormal examinations and track procedures for quality assurance.

I look forward to seeing some data from this pilot project. There's definitely a growing opportunity to leverage interactivity and multimedia in the classroom. As long as educators are using these tools effectively, we should see improvements in the medical school education experience.

Has your iPad replaced your laptop when you travel?

I really wish I could say that my iPad has replaced my laptop. Unfortunately, I find myself too dependent on a number of enterprise-level applications that will only run on a PC. Using a remote desktop app like LogMeIn works fine as long as I don't need to do any intensive work. However, I find myself always multitasking when I'm traveling at a conference, so that's why my iPad simply isn't sufficient for me when I travel.

Over the weekend, I was attending the Medicine 2.0 conference at Stanford. I had 3 batteries for my HP convertible tablet PC (EliteBook 2760p): two main batteries and a very thin slice battery that attaches on the bottom. I had over 10 hrs of battery life with all these lithium-ion batteries.

Of course, with the iPad, you can easily get 10 hrs of battery life and you don't even need to carry any extra batteries. That's why I really wish the iPad would meet my professional business needs. If it did, then I would gladly leave my laptop at home.

Over the next 12 months or so, I plan to test additional Android tablets like the Lenovo ThinkPad. These devices are built for business users, so maybe they'll end up meeting 99% of my needs when I travel.

Things are getting much more interesting in the tablet sector (Part 2)

Author: Riley Alexander, MD, MBA

The iPad was released in 2010 to an essentially new market with unknown potential. We and Apple quickly learned there was a lot of potential there--much more than most expected. 2011 saw the first batch of competitors try and dethrone the iPad and the release of the iPad 2. Nearly all the competitors were half-baked Android-running clones that were usually released in an essential "beta" version that only offered a few extra hardware features and, in many cases, cost more than the iPad they were trying to bring down. Besides Android enthusiasts, these didn't fare so well. The most notable dropout, mentioned in Part 1 of series, was HP's TouchPad, mostly because it was on the market for such a brief time and seemed to signal HP giving up on WebOS as a whole. While many predicted 2011 the year of the tablet, it's been much of the same--the iPad and everything else. Things are looking to change though.

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Downloading and installing Windows 8 Developer Preview

I've downloaded the Windows 8 Developer Preview operating system and I'm in the process of installing it on a few different test machines. You can get the free download here.

The Windows Developer Preview is a pre-beta version of Windows 8 for developers.

Windows 8 will be optimized for touch-screen devices like tablets. I can't wait to see how it runs on my HP Slate 500.

Doximity blog lists 15 practical iPad apps

Take a look at the Doximity Blog to see their list of 15 practical iPad apps.

Doximity is a HIPAA-compliant physician network and communication platform. Free for doctors on iPhone, Android and web.

Join Dr. Lisa Gualtieri for "Designing Mobile Experiences for Healthcare Consumers"

If you're interested in mobile health, then make sure to join Dr. Lisa Gualtieri for "Designing Mobile Experiences for Healthcare Consumers" at the 2011 mHealth Summit on December 7. This workshop is limited to 25 attendees and I think it will be an excellent session.

Overview: In this workshop, you will learn how to design health apps through user experience (UX) techniques including persona and scenario development, formative evaluation, and competitive analysis. The following topics will be covered:

• Best practices in mHealth UX and the key factors that make the difference between adoption and abandonment
• How to develop and use personas representing your target audience(s) using Consumer Reports Health as an example
• How to conduct formative evaluations to receive feedback as early as possible
• How to use competitive analysis to borrow from design successes and avoid design flaws
• Case study highlighting the user experience considerations that informed Alliance Health’s mHealth design and development process

Presenters:

• Lisa Gualtieri, PhD, ScM, Assistant Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine
• Tara Montgomery, Director, Consumer Reports Health
• Matt Goldfeder, Director, Mobile Products & Services, Consumer Reports
• Stead Burwell, CEO, Alliance Health

You can learn more here.

I'm testing the HP EliteBook 2760p convertible tablet PC

I admit that I don't understand how HP numbers their products. I've been following the EliteBook 2700p series for several years and here are the model numbers:

• 2710p
• 2730p
• 2740p
• 2760p

Do you see a pattern? I'm not sure that I do, but this is besides the point. I've been using the 2730p as one of my main portable computers for the past few years. I skipped the 2740p upgrade because I try to space my upgrades to at least every-other-model. This way, I'm not constantly upgrading my gadgets. That's why I still use the original iPad. I'm skipping the iPad 2 and I'm waiting for the iPad 3 or iPad HD.

Now, on to the 2760p. This convertible tablet PC runs Windows 7 and is very similar to the 2740p. The form factor is roughly the same and the 2760p attaches to the same revised ultra-slim base that came with the 2740p. Fortunately, all of the 2700p series use the same standard and slice batteries.

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Medical students can take notes during class using a tablet if they...

Medical students can take notes using a tablet if they use a tablet that accepts pen-based input. Traditionally, Windows tablet PC used Wacom technology and Penabled digitizer pens that allowed you to draw and write directly on the screen of your tablet. Your "inking" could also get converted into text if your handwriting was somewhat legible.

Today, we live in an era of capacitive touch-based computing and many people have said "bye bye digitizer pen (or stylus if you prefer)." Those of us who lived in the era of traditional tablet PCs often miss our pens and we feel drawn to tablets that have pen-input technology.

Today, we're left with a few options if you want a touch-based tablet that also allows you to take notes using a pen. N-trig has filled the void with its DuoSense digitizer that lets you switch from capacitive touch to pen-based input. If you want the best of both worlds, you can choose between tablets like the Lenovo ThinkPad (running Android), the HTC EVO View 4G from Sprint (running Android), or the HTC Flyer (running Android).

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The ideal slate tablet for a doctor or medical student: accounting for the white coat pocket

There's no doubt that the Apple iPad is a very popular slate tablet among medical professionals. Close behind, the wide variety of Android-powered slates are gaining momentum quickly. Part of the reason is that the Android tablets come in different sizes (7" and 10") whereas the iPad only comes as a 10" slate. That's fine if you want a large device, but if you're looking for something will easily slip into the pocket of your white coat, then a 7" tablet could be a better fit for your needs.

I've had the pleasure to test both the HTC EVO View 4G from Sprint and the Samsung Galaxy Tab 7.0 (not to be confused with the 10" model called the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1). Samsung also has a model called the Galaxy Tab 8.9 (I'm not sure why they're making so many different models). The bottom line is that these 7" tablets will fit very easily in your white coat pocket.

So, for busy medical students and physicians who are looking for a slate that is highly portable, a 7" tablet powered by Android could be a good way to go. Personally, I like having both an Android device (my smartphone) and an iOS device like the iPad. This lets me test a variety of apps on either OS. I admit that I don't use my iPad as often as I once did, but that's because I sit in front of a computer all day.

You'll probably find me using a 7" slate tablet pretty soon. I really like the HTC EVO View 4G from Sprint, so I may just end up getting one to supplement my HTC ThunderBolt 4G smartphone. Then again, Samsung and LG have some new slate tablets that will be arriving this fall, so maybe I'll wait.

Are you looking for a portable tablet that you can easily carry in your white coat pocket? Try taking your coat to a Sprint store and see how these 7" devices feel. Now, if Apple came out with a 7" device, then we may have to re-evaluate this whole issue.

Thoughts from a hospital CMIO about the HTC EVO View 4G from Sprint

The other day, I had a chance to show off the HTC EVO View 4G from Sprint. I'm testing this small little slate tablet and a hospital CMIO (Chief Medical Information Officer) asked me, "what's that?" Here's the rest of the conversation (summarized):

Me: This is the HTC EVO View 4G from Sprint. I'm testing this for a few weeks. It's a 7" slate tablet running the Android OS.

CMIO: Can I take a look at it?

Me: Sure, but don't drop it.

CMIO: Wow, this is great! It's exactly what I've been looking for. This will fit in my white coat pocket and will allow me to get online through Wi-Fi or 3G/4G. I'm going to get one.

Me: How do you think you'll use this in the hospital?

CMIO: I'll use Citrix Receiver to access our hospital computers. Plus, I'll have access to my email, my calendar, and the web so that I can remain productive when I'm on-the-go. I'm constantly on my feet, so it would be great to have a single mobile device that will allow me to stay on top of all my tasks. Plus, I can scribble notes on the screen by using the digital pen.

The HTC EVO View 4G from Sprint is a nice, ultra-portable slate tablet that will easily fit into a white coat pocket. In many ways, it's the ideal size for medical professionals who want something that's smaller than an iPad. I know that iPads are extremely popular among physicians and medical students, but more and more health care professionals are finding that a slightly smaller device is much more usable in the hospital environment (less likely to get left behind and lost).

The HTC EVO View 4G from Sprint is also unique in that it you can get a digital pen powered by the HTC Scribe Technology. This means that you can draw/write right on the screen if you have the right pen. Here's how HTC describes it:

HTC Scribe Technology enabling enhanced voice-synchronized note taking with the HTC Scribe digital pen using Timemark to capture the audio of a meeting at the same time as written notes

Thinking about a new tablet? You can read about my initial impressions of the HTC EVO View 4G here. I'll sure miss this device when I send it back to Sprint. I may need to get one myself.