Open-source hardware is hardware whose design is made publicly available so anyone can study, modify, distribute, make and sell the design or the hardware based on that design. Some open-source hardware projects can potentially be used as active medical devices. The open-source approach offers a unique combination of advantages, including reducing costs and faster innovation. This article compares 10 of open-source healthcare projects in terms of how easy it is to obtain the required components and build the device.

Technology is changing at a rapid rate, opening up new possibilities within the health care domain. Advances such as open source hardware, personal medical devices, and mobile phone apps are creating opportunities for custom-made medical devices and personalized care. However, they also introduce new challenges in balancing the need for regulation (ensuring safety and performance) with the need to innovate flexibly and efficiently. Compared with the emergence of new technologies, health technology design standards and regulations evolve slowly, and therefore, it can be difficult to apply these standards to the latest developments. For example, current regulations may not be suitable for approaches involving open source hardware, an increasingly popular way to create medical devices in the maker community. Medical device standards may not be flexible enough when evaluating the usability of mobile medical devices that can be used in a multitude of different ways, outside of clinical settings. Similarly, while regulatory guidance has been updated to address the proliferation of health-related mobile phone apps, it can be hard to know if and when these regulations apply. In this viewpoint, we present three examples of novel medical technologies to illustrate the types of regulatory issues that arise in the current environment. We also suggest opportunities for support, such as advances in the way we review and monitor medical technologies.

Abstract-When we connect smart devices to one another we open up many new possibilities. One interesting possibility is to support high-level semantic interaction without requiring multiple steps on multiple devices. In this paper we investigate how ontologies, runtime task models, Belief-Desire-Intention (BDI) models, and the blackboard architectural pattern may be used to enable semantic interaction for pervasive computing. An initial demonstrator was developed to visualize and manipulate semantic connections between devices in a smart home environment. The demonstrator provides a way for users to physically interact with devices on a high level of semantic abstraction without being bothered with the low-level details.

No abstract

Abstract-In envisioned smart environments, enabled by ubiquitous computing technologies, electronic objects will be able to interconnect and interoperate. How will users of such smart environments make sense of the connections that are made and the information that is exchanged? This Internet of Things could have a life of its own, exchanging digital concepts and values between its members, having an understanding of each other and communicating in their own language. In this paper we report on an ongoing research project in the context of smart home environments. We discuss possibilities to represent this digital world in the physical reality we live in, by providing handles to control and clues to understand, build conceptual models of connections that exist or can be made. This is achieved by making semantic abstractions of low-level events and presenting them to users at a higher level, in a simplified fashion. Furthermore, we used an ontology to describe the low-level events, and used reasoning to infer high-level meaningful information. Although we are in the preliminary stages of our research, we consider it worthwhile to share and illustrate our findings by presenting a demonstrator, that implements our ideas in a home entertainment scenario.