SENSOR READINGS, CAPTAIN!

I have just started Star Trek The Next Generation on Netflix and finally ‘get’ a whole bunch of the central concepts and I love it. I only ever saw it by ‘catching’ it by accident on telly. They were always doing sensor sweeps of planets for life forms and seemed to be able to tell all sorts of things from space.

Now, In my career, I learned how to schmooze, completely by familial osmosis from my mum, who used to have brunch parties and got all sorts of folks to come round for devilled kidneys and kedgeree with Buck’s Fizz of a Sunday morning. You wouldn’t believe some of the people I met! Or maybe you would….. Anyway, I schmoozed my way to the very top in electronics journalism. That is when the awesome Consumer Electronics Association of America has you officially invited as their guest to Las Vegas for the CES in January.

As a ‘scholarship journalist’ you get given a healthy budget to fly to Las Vegas, and you have the services of their own flight agents to help you book. Then, when you get there, you are given accommodation as well as all the regular press privileges, like the crucial press bag with lots of cool embroidery! Also, you get to go and have an audience with the BOSS! Out of the huge number of commitments during one of the biggest conventions in the world, with 176,000 attendees last time I went, the Guv’Nor gets a brief hour to talk to the journalists they have done this for worldwide.

A lot didn’t even go! Possibly overwhelmed with the work.. but I went to the seated room in the convention centre and sat down in the front row and had questions ready. And this is why the preamble: I asked the man in charge of the world’s biggest electronics show what the future was all about and he said, “Sensors, the future will be about sensors.”

Of course, he is right. From the squidgy ‘thing’ the man from Autoglass put in between a doohickey and the back of my replacement windscreen, to the stuff going on in a modern smartwatch, the sensor is the key. All else is simply processing and graphics these days, with ever more clever apps.

Amongst other things, as a scholarship journalist, I was asked to tick which boxes I was interested in. Of course that was Car Audio and Home HiFi and TVs and…medical, through a fascination with medical tech and also because MeJulie, darling wife of umpteen years is diabetic and has seen changes in technology you wouldn’t believe.

The latest technology for measuring the blood sugar of a diabetic involves a tiny sensor that has to be stuck on with a plaster and has a probe going into your skin. One tiny prick and you get continuous blood sugar monitoring. WAY better because it says if it is going up or down, and how fast, which normal testing every few hours will only show bluntly. But it is still subcutaneous.

And now, the very latest technology is being worked upon by a Japanese company, who are exhibiting in Dubai right now.

It can measure blood sugar levels and changes, non-invasively by shining light into your skin! Sounds amazing and it may be the single biggest step to wards the stated goals of Diabetes UK, who say they want a world, “Where Diabetes can do no harm.”

So here is their press release. I make no apologies for covering medical technology:

Quantum Operation’s Arab Health Exhibit to Showcase their progress in world’s first noninvasive glucose monitor that follows chronological change in blood glucose after eating. Health tech startup will also present a nonstop oxygen saturation (SpO2) monitoring wristband.

TOKYO (June. 21, 2021) – At Arab Health 2021 (June. 21-24, Dubai World Trade Centre), Quantum Operation Inc., a Tokyo-based healthcare IoT startup, will present the progress in their world’s first noninvasive glucose monitor. Quantum Operation will report its sensor’s accuracy by showing
comparison data with SMBG before and after eating chocolate. As a result, in addition to the small difference in accuracy, they are able to prove that they could capture change in values for postprandial blood glucose. This is the first noninvasive glucose monitor which has shown this change in public in the world.

The company’s patented spectrum sensing technology enables the monitoring sensor to accurately measure glucose in a person’s bloodstream through the skin while being worn around their wrist. This monitor eliminates the need – and pain – of daily needle uses for diabetic patients and enables truly continuous measurement. During Arab Health 2021, Quantum Operation will also showcase its oxygen saturation measuring sensor (SpO2) that can be worn around the wrist.

The key to achieving this noninvasive 24/7 monitoring are Quantum Operation’s core technologies that include the novel spectrometer materials – one of which is designed to emit an optimal spectrum, and another that is highly responsive to target spectra – as well as the innovative firmware that efficiently extract targeted data by canceling noise. These technologies can be used to measure all types of vital signs, ranging from heart rate to electrocardiography (ECG).

“After announcement at CES 2021, our sensor received a very strong response from all over the world. In particular, many diabetic patients asked us to produce this sensor as soon as possible, and we strongly felt the social significance of this product once again,” said Quantum Operation CEO Kazuma
Kato. “Our goal is to improve the lives of diabetics who have to endure daily needle sticks and pain, and we will continue to make progress toward that goal. We are very excited to share our sensing technology and disease management solutions with the world through Arab Health 2021.”

https://quantum-op.co.jp/
Features
● Noninvasive, accurate and continuous glucose monitoring
● Enables healthcare providers to monitor patients’ conditions remotely
● Can serve as an effective tool for collecting big data