The problem with diagnosing Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia is that by the time someone presents symptoms, it is generally rather late in the game. Looking for a way to detect the affliction earlier on, researchers at the University of South Florida have developed a wireless network for use by senior living centers. Utilizing a series of receivers placed strategically around the building and RFID transponders worn on the wrists of patients, the system monitors people's walking patterns, looking for actions characteristic of cognitive decline -- including a tendency to wander, to veer suddenly, or to pause repeatedly. So far the study has found a statistical relationship between abnormal walking patterns and people for whom testing indicated dementia. The next step is to take that data and look for ways to predict the disease. Good luck, kids -- and hurry up. We ain't getting any younger 'round here.

Source Engadget

What do you think the chances are that Learning Table will support touch in the future. Pretty good I would think. :)  In the meantime enjoy the preview of the soon to be released Asus Eee PC Touch Tablet.

I'm a little concerned that this new Logitech setup, might not have enough buttons for me.

Verona McMahon a teacher of Foundation Studies at Riverina TAFE and a member of the excellent Learning Technology Mentors program that Institute is running. She recently sent me a copy of a video she shot of her work with rfid Learning Table.

Here is what Verona said about the video  and her use of rfid Learning Table: 

I ran a course which was a joint venture between: Riverina Institute of TAFE NSW, Coomealla Campus; Coomealla High School, NSW DET; Schools in Partnership; and the Aboriginal Education Consultative Group (AECG), Dareton.

Our students were years 7 to 10 students from Coomealla High School. Students worked on their own raps to express their experiences of living in their particular communities at their age and to relate their stories round this. Each student recorded a rap. When the AECG had a barbecue at Coomealla TAFE I showcased the students' raps outdoors by using the laptop and both the speakers and RFID scanner powered by the laptop battery. Each student's rap was tagged to a plastic card RFID tag.

This tag was inserted into a plastic sleeve which also held a photo of the student and the rap title. People in attendance at the BBQ were free to come up to the laptop and receive simple instructions on how to listen to the individual raps via your Learning Table Player. Enjoy the outback ambience as you view this video.

Thanks Verona, for sharing this and well done on a innovative and interesting use for Learning Table.

Dan

Yes it really was still around.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/05/microsoft_retires_windows_3_1_1/print.html

 And here is another interesting story about Microsoft from long ago:

http://www.pagetable.com/?p=43

Pretty cool. :)

Some organisations have a policy of testing any new software in a virtual PC, before they deploy it on their networks and looking forward, many applications might permantly run in such a configuration. We are pleased to say that rfid Learning Table works just fine in a Virtual PC space as you can see below and indeed, we run it like this often, when building and deploying interim builds for testing.
We use and recommend VMWare (www.vmware.com) which supports virtual USB ports, so even the reader works fine in this environment. :)

First thing in the morning courier arrives with some new rfid goodies. Part of running a business like this is we constantly have to try out new ideas, concepts and technologies. I estimate as much as a third of our time and income is reinvested in learning and trialling new ideas and technology.

Today spent time with Andrew (the other NECS developer) doing a Scrum of all our projects and where they are at, as we prepare to wind down for Christmas. Afterwards we reviewed our project task list for the next release of rfid Learning Table and decided to start speccing out the database and feature list for the new Quiz component of rfid Learning Table. Yes if you read the blog, you might get the odd sneak peak at what is in future releases. :)

Did some story boarding and even role playing, as we tried to step through the process that a teacher might go through to create and setup a quiz. Fortunately this process is made a bit easier by the fact we both have a teaching background. Also thought about issues such as the user interface and some rough notes on the database design. One of the challenges is we are drawing up a featurelist they may not be seen by the user for several iterations of LT, but we still have to think about them and accommodate them in the work we do now. By the time we finished we had done about four hours of work on all this, with two brief interruptions for phone calls.

Spent some time near the end thinking about maintenance issues with the new quiz component and how to keep that manageable. With a Micro ISV support issues (and costs) are critical. If we have to do support work, then another project might be delayed. At the very least the family see less of both of us.

Tomorrow we spec out the database in detail and build it.

Finished the normal work day with processing an order and payment for LT, reviewing and answering some email (I do this twice a day) and researching a new drop down category listbox I want to code for another project called Time Trax.

About to finish and get a phone call from our hardware guru Alex Bell, who lets me know that a component from Switzerland we have been waiting on has arrived. Early testing looks promising. We are trying to find a way to cost reduce our desktop high frequency readers, so they are affordable for markets like education. He does advise me that we will probably have to roll our own device drivers for Windows for this to work. I've already played a bit with the hardware with a TTL to Serial adapter so was expecting this. Look at my project list and sigh. Looks like we have to squeeze that development in before mid year to meet our internal deadlines. Discuss some ideas to make the hardware easier and cheaper to pull together and agree to meet and discuss Alex's progress on the weekend.

Post a response on Sue Waters blog about the MLearn Conference and Sue replies. Sue has some excellent resources if you are interested in the web 2.0 world here. Sue is rather obsessed with the internet, even sharing and documenting her obsession with the lolly jar here. Give a quick reply to her and then think about dinner.

After dinner spent another hour or so with my wife (a PT TAFE Teacher) discussing the pros and cons of the database design. She had, as always another perspective on a couple of design issues. I documented them and will need to discuss them with Andrew in the morning.

Saw kids to bed and then updated one of our code tools (ReFactor) which had just been updated by the developers. Checked the readme file and was somewhat relieved to see it was just a maintenance release. In the past month we have had several updates of our coding tools that have mean't I have had to take time out to see what new features and changes were made.

Reviewed some blogs and web sites to see what IT news happenings went on today. Finally decided to make this blog entry and sign off for the day at 11:46pm.