#Mastercard seeks to move digital money fast NEW YORK Mastercard wants to speed up digital payments. The financial services giant has launched just Mastercard Send,
which the company claims as a first-of-its-kind global platform that promises to move funds into your debit accounts in a half-hour
or less, compared to the one to three days that is typically how long automated check clearinghouse transactions take.
According to Mastercard, more than $1 trillion is spent globally each year on transactions where people are using paper checks or cash.
Under Mastercard Send, payments made for insurance claims, rebates, tax refunds and so forth would be made to your debit card
and dispatched in near real-time. The program is agnostic across brands. That means you don't have to use a Mastercard debit card to take advantage of the platform.
But Mastercard isn't marketing Mastercard Send directly to consumers. In that sense, the new platform isn't analogous to a Paypal or Venmo.
Instead, Mastercard is soliciting business partners which could then get money to customers more quickly.
The Send program can also be used to move money across borders, including to"unbanked"people in developing nations.
Anyone that wants to take advantage of Send in the U s. would have to register their debit cards with participating providers of which Berkshire hathaway Travel Protection
and Freeshipping. com are the first to be announced publicly.""You're immediately pulling from an existing source of funds so there's no issue of`is the provider good for this money?'"
'"says Mastercard's Cheryl Guerin.""It's like a normal transaction through the debit card system.
You don't have to go through that clearing process.""Mastercard also says the system is more private and secure than writing checks.
The company hopes folks looking to pay the dog sitter, handyman, or to complete other"peer-to-peer"type transactions will also be able to use the Send system for such purposes."
"Providers that want to offer a P2p service will be using our system to enable (those sorts of scenarios),
"says Guerin.""We consistently look at opportunities (to) drive more transactions through electronic payments and away from the inconvenience of cash and checks.
And there definitely was room in this space for being able to do that.""Indeed, James Wester, the research director for global payments at IDC, sees this as a step forward."
"Consumer payments in the U s. have been slow in keeping up with an on-demand economy where consumers have instant access to so many services through their mobile devices,
"he says.""The delay they experience in receiving funds, for instance waiting for a check to clear
or money to settle into their accounts, has become an anachronism. Unfortunately, many of the proposed solutions to the issue from the Fed or through ACH (Automated Clearing house) are still just proposals with expected implementations that may be years away.
So this is an important step in bringing payments up to speed.""Email: ebaig@usatoday. com; Follow@edbaig on Twitte t
#Hyundai becomes first with Android Auto LOS ANGELES --Whether it's hunting for directions or tracking down trivia answers,
Hyundai thinks it has found the most seamless way yet to let drivers integrate their smartphones seamlessly into their cars.
Hyundai says it is the first automaker to launch Android Auto in a production car,
a service that will go initially into its new Sonata sedan. All that's needed to get it is a free software flash at a dealership.
Android Auto and the yet-to-arrive Apple Carplay are aimed at preventing drivers from becoming distracted.
It should make it possible to undertake many smartphone functions while barreling down the interstate at 60 miles per hour.
With the Android Auto companion app users will be able to access Google maps, send text messages,
query their phones for information, play music storeed in the phone and other functions. And they can do it any of three ways:
the car's touchscreen, steering wheel controls or voice.""Android Auto aligns with Hyundai's core interior design principles of safety,
intuitiveness and simplicity,"said Dave Zuchowski, CEO of Hyundai Motor America, in a statement.""We launched this highly anticipated feature on our best-selling Sonata,
adding to our promise of value.""USA TODAY was allowed to be among the first in the automotive media to test the system.
We found ourselves relying heavily on the voice commands, simply because it's the easiest way to keep focused on the road.
The navigation system worked fine, but it was duplicative of a key function that the car was already able to perform through its own navigation system.
Why do need you both? More useful was the ability to text others and tap the smartphone's music collection.
The system was reasonably good at deciphering our dictated commands. Our expectation was that it would get even better as it heard the same voice day after day.
The function that really made Android Auto worthwhile was the ability to seek information. From finding the nearest dry cleaner to settling bets about presidential history,
the system did its best to hunt down answers. The decision to make Android Auto available for free should engender lots of warm feelings from Sonata buyers.
What's more recent Sonata owners can also take advantage of the update. Now let's see
if Apple Carplay is just as good d
#Doctors build mobile tech to save kids'lives Every year, an estimated 3. 5 million children die for no reason other than the impacts of poverty.
These children, ages 5 and younger, die from preventable diseases such as pneumonia, dehydration, diarrhea, and systemic infections that could be treated with antibiotics.
Ninety-nine percent of them live in poor countries. Dr. Barry Finette, founder and CEO of Burlington-based THINKMD,
and a pediatrician, has witnessed some of those deaths firsthand. Finette has worked on humanitarian medical missions in countries including Bhutan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, Republic of congo and Uganda.
Sometimes the death of a child from an untreatable medical condition is inevitable even here in Burlington, Finette said.
Children in Burlington die despite the availability of resources and expertise to help them.""If you don't live in a country that has those resources
and expertise then you die simply because you're poor, "he said.""That's what drives me to do what I'm doing now,
to try to bridge that gap.""Together with his partner, pediatrician Dr. Barry Heath, Finette has developed a smartphone-based medical intelligence platform that allows community health workers without medical training to diagnose
and treat sick children with remarkable efficacy. Field tests in the Philippines and Peru have shown these workers reaching the same conclusions as a trained pediatrician more than 80 percent of the time a rate of effectiveness that matches
what doctors are able to achieve among themselves.""Although the literature is not robust, if you take 100 physicians
and have them examine the same patient they agree about 80 percent of the time,
"Heath said.""That was our initial goal. I want someone who has no formal medical training to use this device
and to have it agree with a pediatrician 80 percent of the time.""Mission accomplished so far.
Finette leaves this month for further testing in Ecuador. The worst they ever hadboth Finette and Heath have day jobs.
Finette, 58, is a professor of pediatrics, microbiology and molecular genetics at the University of Vermont College of Medicine and director of the Global Health and Humanitarian Opportunity Program.
Heath, 64, is a professor of pediatrics, and chief of inpatient and critical care pediatrics at The University of Vermont Children's Hospital.
The two have known each other for 26 years, crossing paths as young pediatricians and then as co-workers at the University of Vermont Medical center.
About seven years ago Finette decided on a major diversion from his work at UVM Medical center as a researcher and in the emergency room critical care unit for children."
"I took a sabbatical, "Finette said.""I wanted to look into global health and humanitarian work."
"Finette got a diploma from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and another diploma in international humanitarian assistance from Fordham University in New york and the United nations in a program called the Center for International Humanitarian Cooperation."
"So I got some educational background in these areas, "Finette said. After that, Finette went to work,
volunteering overseas for organizations such as Project Hope, which sent him to Panay Island in the Philippines,
devastated in 2013 by Typhoon haiyan, the strongest storm ever recorded on land. The journey took almost two days,
and Finette was seeing patients 20 minutes after he arrived.""That's pretty much how you do it,
"he said.""You see physical devastation, an area that's extremely remote, a poor area.
You see people working hard to put things back together.""Although Filipinos are accustomed to typhoons,
Finette said Haiyan was different.""You could see it in their emotions and the effect it had said psychologically,
"he.""It was an experience they'll never forget. The worst that they ever had."
"In the redthe medical intelligence platform Finette and Heath have developed is called Medsinc. It works by asking a series of questions about a child's physical condition, focusing on heart rate and respiratory rate, the two vital signs Finette cares about most."
"How fast somebody is breathing breaths per minute gives you an idea if the child is breathing faster or slower than normal,
"he said.""We use that data and put it in our algorithm and scoring systems to try to gauge respiratory distress."
"Of course there are other ways to gauge respiratory distress. On his smartphone, Finette played one of the training videos available on the Medsinc platform,
showing a child in his mother's arms.""This is a baby doing head bobbing, "Finette said."
The health care worker measures the circumference of the child's upper arm.""The more malnourished they are,
"There's been a lot of work to determine how malnourished they are, if you're on that tape in green, yellow,
You put this data into Medsinc.""The Medsinc questions keep coming. Why is the child coming in?
Fever, cough, diarrhea? Does your child have blueness around the mouth, coughing? Vomiting? If they are vomiting, how often?
do you think this would work?'"'"Heath remembered.""I said, 'Yes I think this could work
and I'll help you out.'"'"Finette was surprised by Heath's offer to help. He was only looking for an opinion he respected."
"One doctor for 60,000 peoplethe challenge Finette faced as he contemplated making a dent in the overwhelming toll of disease on poor children was primarily a shortage of skilled healthcare professionals."
"In Burlington, there's one doctor for every 300 or 400 people. In general in the United states there's one physician for every 500 or 600 people."
"There are typically many more community health care workers. Finette couldn't train 500 new doctors, but he could arm 500 community health care workers with a tool that would make them the next best thing to a doctor."
"So that's where I came up with this idea of developing this medical intelligence platform anybody can be trained to use,
"Finette said.""Asking 20 to 25 questions on the history of the patient, taking some vital signs, some basic physical examination,
then pushing a button and saying, 'This child appears to be in respiratory distress, and it's this severe.
Finette found that many health care workers were ill-equipped to accurately determine those vital signs. Many of the workers, for example, don't have watches.
Finette brought up a screen on his smartphone with a large red dot.""We built this thing you just tap every time you feel a heartbeat,
and it tells you what the heart rate is said, "he.""We do that for heart rate and respiratory rate.
"The power of economicsfinette and Heath formed THINKMD last August after the University of Vermont passed on developing Medsinc.
As Finette's employer, UVM had first dibs on Medsinc. After the institution declined to pursue it,
He decided on a for-profit company rather than a nonprofit so he wouldn't be at the mercy of granting agencies and organizations.
but that the company is out to make a profit.""I want to build something I can make sustainable,
"The best way is to use the power of economics to do that. I have a product
000 in seed funding from investors. They're about halfway home. That's where new Chief operating officer Nick Donowitz comes in.
Donowitz graduated from Duke university in 2010 with an MBA and a master's degree in environmental management.
Since graduation he's been working off and on for Mars, Inc, . of M&m's and Snickers fame, helping the company on a project in Indonesia to help the cocoa communities Mars buys from."
but also to deploy technology developed by Mars on soil management and water quality.""When Donowitz learned of Finette
"Right now Barry is doing an incredible job with a full-time job at the university of getting his product developed in beta phase to prove the concept,
"Although this application is ordained to have impact in resource-poor areas of the world without access to quality health care
or health care at all, there's application in middle and upper income countries for a similar version of the platform,
or for triage in doctors'offices. Doctor in a boxjohn Rosenblum, founder of Green Mountain Logic,
a health science software company eventually sold to Oracle, volunteers as a strategic advisor to THINKMD.
"When kids spend three hours waiting to be treated for a simple cough we think there's lots of use for Medsinc in the hands of lower level medical personnel under the supervision of doctors,
to"put a doctor in a box.""""That was my dream and the reason I got involved with software was wanted
because I to participate in creating artificial intelligence software that would behave as a doctor, "Rosenblum said."
"Thirty years later we're finally doing it.""Like Rosenblum and Donowitz, THINKMD and Medsinc is attracting interest
""We're not trying to replace doctors, "he said.""We're simply handing these to a preexisting workforce of health care volunteers who are already in place
but don't have the capacity to assess and treat sick children.""For Barry Finette, the global vision for Medsinc begins where the need is greatest."
"Yes, we want to provide appropriate health care to children who need it.""Contact Dan D'Ambrosio at 660-1841 or ddambrosio@freepressmedia. com. Follow him on Twitter at www. twitter. com/Dandambrosiovt.
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#These smart glasses know when you need a nap From heart sensors to concussion trackers,
wearable tech has favored thus far fitness and health gurus. You can use these gadgets to tell how far you've run,
how hard you've trained, and how many calories you've burned. But can they tell you how tired you are?
If the eyes are the window to the soul, then Japanese eyewear manufacturer Jins know more about you than you Do its Jins Meme smart glasses use bio-sensing technology to detect tiny changes in eye and head movement.
This information is displayed on a companion app so you can monitor your fatigue and level of attention factor that could prove critical for long-distance drives, all-nighters,
and just work in general. You may be able to tell how tired or focused you are by simply using your brain,
but the idea behind these smart glasses is to provide a more accurate assessment of your level of focusf that's something you (or an employer!)
The glasses have a six-axis sensor along both earpieces, as well as EOG electrodes in the base of the glass frame, the nose bridge,
and the nose pads, all of which detect blinks and eye movement in eight directions. Jins says that the head is an ideal place to measure axis balance on the human body,
The information gathered by the sensors seemed detailed and accurate. With the free smartphone app,
I was able to tell exactly how tired I was, despite trying to fool it with wide open eyes and a chipper demeanor.
In research settings, scientists could more accurately gather data on sleeping patterns, and, more alarmingly, marketing professionals could learn
and interpret data in innovative ways. They're even sponsoring a contest to find the coolest uses for their product.
While we don't know exactly how accurate the collected data is, it will be interesting to see what kind of functionality third-party developers will come up with.
#New car tech could stop drunken drivers If you're drunk, your car may soon be able to stop you from driving.
A new generation of technology is taking shape around systems that prevent cars from operating
if the driver is drunk. Researchers say the new technology is so promising that they compare it to the advent of the seat belt in terms of its potential."
The levels would be detected from sensors mounted in front of the driver. But the driver wouldn't even need to be aware they are being monitored. ouch.
or another designated surface in the car. Alcohol levels would be measured under the skin's surface on a touchpad with an infrared light scanner.
Experts say either approach would be a breakthrough because unlike past approaches, neither would be obtrusive or embarrassing.
Drivers wouldn't have to blow into a tube or wait around in order to start their car.
The new technology draws support from a number of driving safety advocates, including Mothers Against Drunk Driving."
"This car is going to be the cure, "says Colleen Sheehey-Church, MADD's president who lost her own son to a drunken driver."
an organization representing automakers nationwide.""We have our sights set on inventing a world without drunk driving,
The technology is scheduled to be car-ready in the next five to eight years, according to Zaouk.
It's yet to be seen how much it could add to the price of a new car,
As of now, experts don't envision the system as required equipment in all new cars. Rather
"The breath-based system will draw the driver's breath into a sensor and measure the concentration of carbon dioxide and ethanol molecules being exhaled from the body.
which will be placed in the car. The sensors will act as a tracking system to measure the ratio of carbon dioxide molecules to ethanol molecules produced by the driver.
If the ratio hits a certain threshold of ethanol to carbon, the car won't start.
Researchers are also considering a touch-based system, utilizing spectroscopy to measure alcohol levels in skin tissue.
Infrared light will shine on the driver's skin upon touching a sensor and a portion of this light will reflect back to a system in the touch pad.
If the levels register as 0. 08%or more, the car won't start. The machine will only be setup to analyze ethanol levels,
Researchers have considered putting the touchpad in a natural spot for drivers, mimicking a vehicle start button.
Manufacturers are also considering ways for the car to detect when someone else other than the driver attempts to start the car,
such as creating a touch-ID system programmed to the driver's fingerprints on the touchpad.
Engineers have proposed also a circuit method, forcing the driver to press the button while sitting in the driver's seat."
"We are in the process of taking all of those larger prototypes and making them smaller, making them work in a vehicle environment,
"Zaouk says.""It has to be reliable day in and day out for the life of the vehicle.""These new systems could take the place of current ignition interlock systems,
often ordered by courts after drunken-driving convictions. These systems require drivers to blow air into a device plugged into the car's ignition, measuring alcohol levels in a similar fashion as a breathalyzer.
All states have adopted interlock laws, but vary in mandates and usage. For instance, 24 states, including New york,
Florida and Texas, require interlock devices installed after the first DUI conviction. Drivers usually have to buy the system themselves, usually paying $70 to $150, plus monthly charges for upkeep and court monitoring.
#Apple, Google and 140 others ask Obama to reject ackdooraccess to encrypted data Apple and Google are adding their names to an open letter to President Obama asking him to quash any moves to create ackdooraccess to encrypted data on smartphones and other communication devices.
More than 140 tech firms, civil society organizations, and cryptologists have signed a letter to be sent on Tuesday,
though the Washington post says it has obtained a copy of it in advance. trong encryption is the cornerstone of the modern information economy security,
the co-penned letter says. The issue of online security and encryption has never been far from mainstream headlines
since whistleblower Edward Snowden made a series of revelations about how the National security agency (NSA) mines its data from private communications.
Some of the major tech companies have also been accused of complicitly allowing the government access to backdoor portals to their data.
Last year, both Apple and Google revealed they were now encrypting their phonesdata by default,
It also calls for the government to not eakencommercial software e
#Google and Twitter sitting in a tree, putting tweets in search results for you and me In February,
Twitter signed a firehose deal with Google to bring tweets right into Google search results. This week, that integration started rolling out on mobile,
with a promise to also update the desktop version hortly. As I wrote while covering the announcement,
Google is hoping to boost its real-time search chops while Twitter is aiming for more users and engagement.
Yet at the end of the day, this is one of those rare partnerships that benefit the user first
and the companies later (Twitter is getting an undisclosed amount of money from Google, and Google can potentially monetize tweets with its own ads,
but right now it unclear if either will be significant). First and foremost, this partnership means Google users finally have access to Twitter stream.
Because tweets are often full of timely information, this means searching for anything relatively recent on Google will start bringing up messages sent out on Twitter.
Many events often happen on Twitter first, and that data that can be incredibly useful to have indexed for users to quickly find.
Twitter search engine works, but it nothing special. Google is the king of search, and with Twitter data, it suddenly about to get even more useful.
Assuming that Google users find the tweets theye looking for they will only think more highly of the search engine,
and presumably use it more. In this way, Google is next in line as the one to benefit from this new partnership.
You think Twitter would be next, but there actually one more entity to acknowledge: Twitter users.
Yes, we realize there is a big overlap between Google users and Twitter users. Still, if we examine them separately,
it clear they both win. Twitter users start to benefit once incoming Google users act on the tweets they find.
That can be a favorite, a retweet, or even a reply. If that starts to happen at scale,
and Google has plenty of that, Twitter users should see more content on the social network,
especially in relation to tweets that Google deems important and relevant. Last on the list is Twitter itself,
if the company can convert all this new traffic into users who keep coming back. Signing up to engage is one thing
but actually choosing to become an active Twitter user is what the company really needs.
That no easy feat, and so Twitter opportunity to benefit from this partnership requires the most work.
To recap, here the order of winners: Google users, Google, Twitter users, and Twitter. The biggest loser?
#This was a big week for driverless, anti-alcohol, and parking space-sensing cars For fans of automated autos that don need drivers, don like alcohol,
and sniff out empty parking spaces, this was a big week. On Thursday, the federal government National Highway Traffic safety Administration showed a prototype vehicle with alcohol-detection technology.
Called Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety, or a parental-sounding DADSS for short, it features two methods for preventing drunk drivers from driving.
One is a breathalyzer on the steering wheel that reads the driver breath and determines if the blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) level is over 0. 08 percent,
which is the legal limit in every state. The other is infrared an scanner on the vehicle start button that detects the BAC below the skin of the driver finger.
While this is not the first such alcohol detection system, it does have the imprimatur of the NHTSA,
which already carries huge clout in the marketplace for its vehicle safety ratings. The systems, in development with major auto makers, are at least five years away from market availability
and are projected to cost $400 as an optional safety add-on. The American Beverage Institute, an industry organization
has raised questions about whether either method can detect blood alcohol levels immediately after drinking. For those of us who have spent too much of our lifetimes cruising for empty parking spaces,
BMW demonstrated this week at the Telematics Automotive conference near Detroit a differentiator that could save us time.
The company announced it is developing ipark technology (sorry, Apple, youe apparently lost that trademark) that can show on the car navigation system the nearby empty parking spaces and their conditions,
like hours when parking is permitted. The technology, developed by Kirkland, Washington-based Inrix, is intended also to show space availability in parking garages,
and will be rolled out to 23 cities worldwide by the end of this year. The system uses algorithms that predict
when parked cars will leave, which the company said is about 80 percent accurate. Other automakers are also in talks to license the tech.
Of course, many such cars in a neighborhood could mean a sudden convergence on an empty space reminiscent of the last, desperate players in a game of musical chairs.
And, for those of you who would like to evolve past the days when humans drove vehicles,
Google has agreed to acknowledge accidents involving the testing of its driverless cars. The new transparency was announced at the end of the week
after Google cofounder Sergey Brin initially said on Wednesday his company would not release such accident reports,
which have been rumored to number at least 13. The reason, he said, was not to protect the technology,
but to protect the privacy of the human drivers involved in those accidents. He has contended the driverless cars have never been at fault.
The cause of the human driverserrors, the company has said, appears to be distraction. Perhaps that because they were all thinking of finding a parking space
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