Boston Dynamics’ Spot robots have been used in many creative ways, from surveying a Ford plant in Michigan to herding sheep in New Zealand. Earlier this year, the tech company announced Spot was chipping in to help coronavirus patients — now, we’re seeing the fruits of that work. Boston Dynamics and MIT researchers say they’ve collaborated to create “Dr. Spot,” a robot that can measure a patient’s vital signs without doctor-to-patient contact.

Spot robots are four-legged and designed to nimbly navigate areas wheeled robots cannot, either autonomously or via remote control. To make Dr. Spot, MIT researchers wrote in a study that they outfitted Spot with “contactless monitoring systems,” which included radio signals and radar-based sensors to measure vital signs like respiratory rate and heart rate. Infrared cameras were used to measure fever. Dr. Spot also has a computer tablet that allows doctors to remotely speak with patients. Researchers tested Dr. Spot with volunteers at the Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

The biggest news event of the week was Apple’s virtual WWDC keynote, during which the company showed off a ton of upcoming features to its various software products. In Devindra’s absence, Cherlynn is joined by Dan Cooper as guest co-host, as well as senior mobile editor Chris Velazco to rip into Apple’s latest updates. From iOS 14 vs Android, to watchOS 7, to macOS and Apple’s transition to ARM chips, there’s plenty to discuss.

Then, our hosts are joined by CNBC’s health and health-tech reporter Chrissy Farr to talk about the latest developments in healthcare and telemedicine. Do wearable companies have the right idea when it comes to developing products for COVID-19? What is Apple’s approach to this burgeoning industry?

If you’re on the Targeted Release cycle, you’ll be one of the first people to try this out in Office.com and Outlook for the web. In the new format, you’ll be able to start whichever Office app you want — say Excel or Word, for example — and pull in Fluid components like charts, tables or task lists. 

Microsoft

These components will stay updated wherever they are, so if you edit a cell in a table you pulled from an existing spreadsheet, the value will save in every place it exists. You’ll also be able to collaborate on these files in real time with others, too. These components can be inserted into emails or even a chat app like Microsoft’s Teams. The company also announced that Fluid Framework will be open-source, so you might see third-party apps make use of these features in future too. 

Microsoft also announced a new Lists app that’s based on the existing Lists feature in SharePoint. The project management tool will let you track your progress using checklists across Microsoft’s services, and you can create new to-do lists from within chat apps like Teams, too. You’ll also be able to import existing lists from elsewhere in the app for people in the room to comment and edit. Your coworkers can tweak or leave suggestions on both the full list and individual items in it as well. There’s also conditional formatting so you can have background or font colors change when items are checked off, or have the icons update based on specific situations. 

As Microsoft continues to build out and enhance its suite of productivity software, it’s also eyeing ways to reach more organizations. This week, the company announced its first Industry Cloud offering, which is a set of tools designed for specific industries. Microsoft is starting with Cloud for Healthcare, which is pretty smart and timely given the country’s pivot to telehealth. 

Microsoft

The new service offers medical workers access to a range of tools like Microsoft’s Teams and Healthcare Bot Service, in addition to patient engagement portals and systems for booking appointments and making referrals. Within Teams, healthcare providers can also conduct HIPAA-compliant telehealth visits and follow up on aftercare. The patient portals will also make it easier to manage appointment booking, send reminders and make bill payments across various devices.

Providers can also use Cloud for Healthcare to reach out to patients with preventative and care management programs. With Azure IoT integration, they can also remotely receive data from medical devices in real time to escalate care when needed and respond quickly to emergency situations. 

It all sounds like a comprehensive, well-rounded way to manage most of the aspects of running a healthcare business, which, given how fragmented America’s infrastructure is on this front, is welcome news.

Microsoft

From improving productivity software to creating cloud-based systems for entire industries, to… a supercomputer? Microsoft also announced that it’s developed a supercomputer hosted on its Azure cloud network. It was built specifically to train OpenAI models to tackle large problems. Microsoft hasn’t shared detailed speed measurements yet, but the supercomputer does have 285 THOUSAND CPU cores and 10,000 GPUs that help it execute massive, complicated AI models. That should make it one of the five fastest systems in the world.  

While it’s not yet clear exactly what processes the supercomputer will work on, that amount of power could allow Microsoft to train AI for more complex tasks like moderating game streams, instead of simpler things like recognizing faces in photos, for example.

Again, Microsoft hasn’t laid out concrete plans for how it plans to use this supercomputer, but the company’s been public about its ambitions. It announced in April plans for a planetary computer that’s basically a system that takes in global data about the world, processes it with AI and machine learning, then delivers environmental and biological data to customers. The goal is to help inform decision-making around environmental issues in both the private and public sectors. 

That’s a whole lot of news out of Microsoft in two days, and surprisingly, I’m excited about some of it. Fluid Framework is the most immediately compelling, since it could actually change my day to day workflow. Even though I’m currently a hardcore Google user, I could see Microsoft’s advancements spurring its rivals to step up their games. I’m also intrigued by Cloud for Healthcare and what it could do for medical workers and organizations everywhere. 

This Build, Microsoft showed us improvements at the micro level with boosts to its productivity software, flexed its ample cloud muscle at the middle level with the Industry Cloud offerings, and finally, laid the foundation for good work to come at the macro level with its AI supercomputer news. It’s clear the company wants to be a part of your life at every turn.

“During this pandemic, telehealth services are helping families receive the critical health care they need,” said Senator Schatz. “Our bill will provide much-needed funding to help hospitals improve their connectivity so they can care for more patients.”

According to the press release Senators Schatz and Murkowski shared, several trade groups, including the United States Telecom Association, have endorsed the legislation. Alongside the Medicare changes the Trump administration introduced in March, the additional funding could go a long way toward making remote healthcare more accessible to the public.

An important component of healthcare is aftercare, where medical professionals need to keep in touch with patients to follow up on their recovery. But the tools available to do so are generally limited to follow-up phone calls and emails, which are not only tedious but can sometimes not meet security standards.

Microsoft’s Healthcare Bot Service will be available as a piece of this package, which the company said is behind more than 1,500 instances of COVID-19-based bots that have gone live since March. These bots can help alleviate the strain on emergency hotlines for medical providers while addressing common questions that people might have.

Microsoft

Another service Microsoft is making available is the Bookings app in its Teams collaboration platform, which will allow healthcare workers to schedule, manage and conduct provider-to-patient virtual visits without leaving Teams. Like most similar telehealth services today, Bookings (for Healthcare, at least) will send patients a customized email to go to their appointment in one click on a desktop, or in the Teams app on iOS or Android. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Engadget that Teams “supports HIPAA compliance and is HITRUST certified.”

Cloud for Healthcare will also offer “enhanced patient engagement portals,” according to Microsoft, which lets patients and providers manage appointment booking, reminders and bill payments across various devices. Similar portals already exist, but Microsoft’s will likely make for a more seamless experience on the medical provider’s end since it can tie into other behind-the-scenes part of the infrastructure.

Microsoft’s service is also designed to make it easier for care teams to work across the many parts of America’s dizzying healthcare infrastructure. It includes tools for medical workers to easily create referrals, look up providers, as well as “understand physician spend, satisfaction and enhanced analytics on referral categories,” according to the company’s news release.

We’re back to a somewhat regular week of news on this episode of the Engadget Podcast. Devindra and Cherlynn tackle the good and bad of Dell’s new XPS and Alienware laptops, before diving into Zocdoc’s telehealth play and what that could mean for our healthcare infrastructure in the future. We also contemplate the utility of VR meetings and therapy sessions, as well as the appeal of a quirky pair of wireless earbuds promising to tailor audio to the shape of your ears.

Listen below, or subscribe on your podcast app of choice. If you’ve got suggestions or topics you’d like covered on the show, be sure to email us or drop a note in the comments! And be sure to check out our other podcasts, the Morning After and Engadget News!

Nor should it come as any surprise that people, in these times of unprecedented worry, have turned to alcohol to help manage their stress. Vodka sales in Russia jumped 65 percent during the last week of March, after Vladimir Putin instituted a partial nationwide quarantine while BACTrack reports that weekday drinking throughout the San Francisco Bay Area spiked 45 percent during the first week of the California quarantine which began March 17th. 

But for a lot of people, especially the estimated 14.4 million American adults who already struggle with Alcohol Use Disorder, the prospect of being cooped up inside with time to kill is no reason to celebrate. Compounding the problem is our need to physically distance from one another, which has all but eliminated in-person therapy, recovery and support groups. So how do you get and/or stay sober if you can’t leave your house? Thankfully a number of online resources have emerged in response to the crisis.

Remote therapy isn’t actually all that new. It’s one of a number of applications that make up the larger field of telehealth services. As the federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) defines it, telehealth is “the use of electronic information and telecommunications technologies to support long-distance clinical health care, patient and professional health-related education, public health and health administration.” It’s effectively the same service, both in terms of quantity and quality, that’s available to patients in-person, just provided remotely. 

The first proposed application came back in 1879 when the Lancet suggested leveraging new-fangled telephones to reduce the number of necessary doctor’s office visits. Today, telehealth is used in everything from radiology, dermatology, and dentistry to ophthalmology, optometry, and psychology. It’s been a boon to rural communities and other underserved populations, enabling them access to medical care without the need to drive for hours — assuming they have access to a connected device. And in the age of COVID-19, telehealth is once again proving its worth.

In recent years, telehealth services have seen a spike in new interest from both policy makers and the public in general. Mei Kwong, executive director of the Center for Connected Health Policy in California, notes that around 2016, “Part of that reason was the technology itself was developing, much more rapidly. Technology itself was also becoming more integrated into our lives so I think people were starting to get that familiarity of, ‘Oh, we can use [connected devices] for so many different things — like health care.’”

The CCHP has also seen a significant increase of inquiries about telehealth services over the last year. Kwong points out that in 2019, the CCHP received roughly 30 inquiries. In 2020, that number had ballooned to more than 300. With that growing interest has come a rapid expansion of available online support services such as doxy.me, TalkSpace, TheraNest, and BetterHelp, all of which offer video-based behavioral therapy as well as Woebot and Wyse, which offer text-based help. And with the White House’s recent decision to relax HIPAA requirements and allow people on Medicare to access telehealth programs, the number and scope of these services are certain to grow even further.

“We are doing a dramatic expansion of what’s known as telehealth for our 62 million Medicare beneficiaries, who are amongst the most vulnerable to the coronavirus,” Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said during a White House press conference in March. “Medicare beneficiaries across the nation—no matter where they live—will now be able to receive a wide-range of services via telehealth without ever having to leave home. These services can also be provided in a variety of settings, including nursing homes, hospital outpatient departments, and more.”

However, these mental health services, like virtually every other internet platform, are to a degree at risk of misuse and data breaches. Zoom-bombing has quickly spread from online classrooms to online therapists offices. What’s more, as John Torous, the director of the digital psychiatry division at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, told Slate, “Hackers go for valuable data. Health data is very valuable, and insecure health systems are always primary targets for hackers.” This is why HIPAA requires online platforms not only be secure (at least more secure than what you’d typically find in Google Meet or FaceTime) but also employ business associate agreements certifying the emplacement of administrative safeguards against potential data leaks.

“Many video platforms today do already offer end-to-end encryption, so finding a secure platform is still good clinical practice,” Torous continued, adding that “You can have the best castle, the biggest moat, and biggest door, but if you leave the door open, it doesn’t matter.”

And it’s not just traditional medical experts that are utilizing teletherapy sessions during the quarantine, a number of informal support groups have sprung up in response as well. Laura McKowen, author of We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life, has started a free, Zoom-based sobriety support group which runs six days a week and reaches roughly 300 people per session.

“There are all these people that now can’t go to make it to real life support, they can’t go to meetings or other programs they might be part of, and how impossible that would have been for me in my early sobriety.” McKowen told Engadget. “So I figured I had the platform to do it, I can do it so easily so why not?”

While not officially associated with Alcoholics Anonymous, these meetings are structured similarly. They begin with a brief meditation followed by a reading, “some kind of poem or book or passage that I love,” McKowen explained. “Then I have a speaker who speaks for 25 or so minutes, and then I open it up for people to share,” before closing with a second round of meditation.

And although these online sessions don’t offer the same physical connection as in-person meetings would — those who share can’t hear the group’s applause once they finish, don’t enjoy the physical closeness and recognition from other attendees — the added anonymity of being online has shown to have benefits as well. “If you were sitting in a room of 300 people, it’d feel wild,” McKowen said.  “But because everyone’s at home, it doesn’t feel overwhelming.”

“A lot of people have identified themselves as someone who’s never spoken in the meeting or never said anything to a group of people about their sobriety,” she continued. “So, that is really encouraging to me.”

To ensure that these meetings are safe spaces for those attending, McKowen maintains a tight rein on the operations. “I haven’t experienced any zoom-bombing that’s been happening because I haven’t posted the meeting information on social media anywhere. ” Beyond that, all attendees are muted by default and can only be unmuted by McKowen while they’re sharing so nobody has to listen to the sound of 300 other people fidgeting while they share.

One participant in these meetings is Ginny Hogan, author of Toxic Femininity in the Workplace. Hogan, who has been sober for 13 months, has been isolating in Los Angeles since March. “The good is that I don’t go to social events, which were a trigger for me,” she told Engadget. “I’m a stand up comedian and I used to be in bars a lot and that was always hard.”

On the other hand, Hogan notes that with the quarantine in place “it’s a lot more isolating. I think like human connection is so important in overcoming addiction I can’t imagine doing this if I were earlier in my sobriety.”

Her own experiences with online sobriety support groups to date have been less than stellar. “I went to AA a few times, but it wasn’t really for me, and a virtual AA meeting just because I was having trouble and it’s just challenging,” Hogan explained. “I mean, it is already challenging to connect with everyone there because it’s such a wide variety of people and then online with the extra distance of the Zoom call, it felt very difficult to form any sort of connection.”

Like any recovery program, online support groups are not a one-size-fits-all solution. Kwong advocates for those sorts of decisions to be made by medical professionals in conjunction with their patients. “You should just make it freely available to the healthcare provider to you when they think it is appropriate,” she said. “Leave it to their judgement.” 

“That is what they have been trained for — and another thing they’re actually the one who’s there in that situation with that patient — because even if telehealth could be used medically to provide a service, you still want to take into account that it is appropriate for that person,” Kwong continued.

But even if the idea of online support groups makes your skin crawl, there are still plenty of resources at your disposal during this quarantine. One of the simplest means of cutting back your intake is to simply not keep alcohol in your home, McKowen notes. She also recommends that people “connect with some kind of community. There are so many Facebook groups, there are so many amazing people on Instagram… find a community of people that you can connect with and just dig in that way. Don’t just white knuckle it and not drink.” 

McKowen also suggests recurating your social media feeds to reduce the amount of alcohol related content that flows through your timeline. “A lot more people are talking about drinking right now,” she said. “If I was trying to get sober right now, I would really pay attention to what I was taking in as far as messaging from other people.”

The CSAIL team has already put Emerald to use at an assisted living facility, where they used it to remotely monitor a COVID-19 patient. As the patient recovered, the system detected that her breathing rate decreased from 23 to 18 breaths per minute, her sleep improved and she was walking more quickly around her apartment.

“Given how Emerald can generate important health data without any patient contact, it could minimize the risk that doctors and nurses will catch the disease from their patients,” says Dr. Ipsit Vahia, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. That could be especially helpful in places like skilled nursing and assisted living facilities, where so many patients are at a high risk for contracting COVID-19.

BREAKING: this MIT wireless device has just been used by Boston doctors to monitor COVID-19 patients from a distance, to reduce the risk of contagion.
VIDEO: https://t.co/9g1kgNJ54u
(w/@McLeanHospital)#COVID19 #remotehealth #wireless pic.twitter.com/qNvSWBYgYu

— MIT CSAIL (@MIT_CSAIL) April 14, 2020

As the number of COVID-19 cases spike, Emerald could allow less severe patients to stay at home but remain under the supervision of healthcare providers. In the future, Emerald could be used to monitor other conditions, like anxiety, insomnia and sleep apnea. And along with telehealth, it could spur the shift toward tech-driven remote care.

Hospitals and health centers will be able to apply for up to $1 million in funding, and applications will be accepted on an ongoing basis. Priority will be given to areas with high rates of COVID-19, as well as traditionally underfunded healthcare providers like clinics in poor neighborhoods, TechCrunch notes.

“With the adoption of the $200 million COVID-19 Telehealth Program, the FCC can now take immediate steps to provide funding so that more patients can be treated at home, freeing up valuable hospital beds for those who most need them and reducing the risk of exposure to the virus,” FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said in a statement.

The FCC approved the funding less than a week after it was announced. But the price for that speed may be a lack of guidance. “This is a well-intended effort, but it lacks clear performance metrics,” wrote Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who mostly spoke in favor of the program. “Moreover, it does not focus on a specific problem in healthcare,” she added.

The FCC also adopted rules for the Connected Care Pilot Program, a separate, three-year initiative that will provide up to $100 million to help offset the cost of providing virtual care. One goal of the pilot is to determine how the FCC’s Universal Service Fund might be used to support long-term telehealth. In particular, that program will emphasize providing care to veterans and low-income Americans.

In light of the coronavirus, Medicare has expanded telehealth coverage nationwide. While Medicare previously covered telehealth in some rural areas, patients still had to go to specially-designated sites for their visits. Now, millions of older adults will be able to seek medical advice from the safety of their homes, and with this FCC funding, more healthcare providers will be equipped to provide it.

The COVID-19 Telehealth Program would use funds allocated for the FCC in the CARES Act. If approved, it would provide select applicants with full funding for eligible telehealth services and devices. Pai also presented plans for a longer-term Connected Care Pilot Program, which would make $100 million available over three years to help health care providers implement telehealth services, with an emphasis on serving low-income Americans and veterans.

The FCC also said that, during the pandemic, it won’t kick users out of its Lifeline program, which provides monthly discounts on broadband and voice services to low-income customers. Lifeline providers are normally required to de-enroll subscribers who they believe are no longer eligible, but the FCC says it will suspend that requirement until at least May 29th.

The Pai-era FCC is notorious for cracking down on alleged Lifeline abuse. In November, a Center for Public Integrity investigation found that the FCC’s aggressive stance may be hurting low-income households more than it helps. Since 2017, enrollment has dropped by 2.3 million people. In the District of Columbia, 49 percent of Lifeline users lost their subsidies between March 2018 and June 2019, and Mississippi, Wyoming and Puerto Rico saw similarly drastic drops.

“Our priority right now is keeping Americans connected to broadband and phone service when they need it most. These proactive measures will go a long way in minimizing the risk that a low-income consumer might lose service during the COVID-19 crisis,” Pai said in a press release.

US wireless carriers have already pledged to suspend cancellations during the COVID-19 outbreak, and AT&T, Comcast, Sprint and T-Mobile have taken additional steps to keep subscribers connected.