Researchers at Microsoft are considering how to use the
company’s products to help consumers meet health care goals, PC World reports.
The company is working on a mobile phone application called
MyLife, in which users can log personal health metrics -- such as blood pressure
and weight -- that they then could upload to Microsoft’s HealthVault.
One goal is to let users photograph their meals and then
gain nutrition information about the food via a mobile phone application.
Microsoft also hopes to develop a way for consumers to use
accelerometers -- sensors commonly built into that can track movement -- to
determine how many steps people take when they walk.
The MyLife applications and other developments comport with
the company’s goal of putting more personal medical data into patients’ hands,
according to Eric Chang, director of technology strategy at Microsoft Research
Asia (Fletcher, PC World, 2/8).