Mobile health is a pandemic-driven change that could benefit everyone.
The pandemic has driven countless changes in behavior, lifestyles, working patterns, and our values. Many of us are taking a keener interest in our health than before and we're using the technology in our pockets to help keep on top of our wellbeing. Mobile health, or m-health, is a growing market that already hit $60 billion in 2022 and is predicted to top $300 billion by 2030.
We know that the sooner we seek help with an illness, the better the prospects for a satisfactory outcome. Despite this, many of us, upon noticing any unusual signs, are inclined to "wait and see." That's usually less than ideal and sometimes has dire consequences. M-health not only permits better self-awareness by enabling continuous monitoring of our own vital signs, but can also overcome procrastination by automatically reporting any worrying signs as soon as they become apparent. A suitable response and – if necessary – a care plan can then be configured quickly, leading to faster recovery. Our devices can effectively take us to the (digital) doctor at the first sign of trouble. This should contribute to better health and longer lives for everyone. It may also reduce the overall load on healthcare services by helping more people avoid acute conditions that can be costly and time consuming to treat.
It's also clear that m-health will lead to an explosion in the quantity of potentially sensitive personal data gathered into the systems that manage our care. This is necessary to accumulate digital knowledge regarding the indicators for various conditions, so that systems can become progressively better at detecting illnesses in their early stages and recommending the best course of action. Moreover, this knowledge will be based on real case data and therefore should be accurate and unbiased.
The rebalancing of high-tech power must involve the entire supply chain – and will increase prices for everyone.
Advanced technology is an important instrument of power on the world stage. Arguably more than at any previous time in history, it's closely linked to economic influence, energy generation and management, healthcare delivery, international diplomacy, and military strength including cyber capabilities. Access to advanced technology is the issue at the heart of the current maneuvering between western nations and China, in particular.
Concerned about the potential for Chinese control over its communication networks, the West has restricted involvement in 5G infrastructure projects. It's currently limiting shipments of advanced industrial technology. Of course, China has responded, announcing export controls on raw materials like gallium and germanium, which are basic ingredients for producing compound semiconductors: a critical enabling technology for future generations of equipment such as optical networking, 5G infrastructure, and high-efficiency power conversion needed to ensure affordable renewable energy and e-mobility.
Adaptability in all aspects is the PCB industry's greatest strength.
“Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.” – Robert C. Gallagher
It’s an amusing quip (although perhaps increasingly incongruous given the rapid adoption of contactless payments) that lets me comment on some of the transformations we have experienced in the PCB industry over recent years. Some challenges, such as thermal management, had receded for a time but are now back and more urgent than ever. Others, like the constant demand to support faster and faster signal speeds, demand that we continue to extend the limits of performance from the materials and techniques at our disposal.
The PCB’s role has become hugely more significant and influential as electronic systems have gotten more complex, more performance hungry, and more mission critical. It has extended from providing basic mechanical support and connectivity to becoming a comprehensively engineered part of the system.
The electronics industry of today is vastly different from the way things were as recently as the 1980s. Thermal management was a great challenge, largely due to the inefficiency of circuits such as linear power converters and power amplifiers. The adoption of much more efficient switched techniques, as well as exponentially smaller chip fabrication processes, solved that challenge for a while.
AI could be the key to understanding the data collected by the IoT.
Big data is useless and all the sensors in the world are not enough. Contentious? Maybe. I've talked in the past about the prospects for digitizing the world and it's true that we have many of the ingredients to make this happen: tiny, low-power sensors including optical and MEMS inertial sensors that provide contextual awareness; connectivity technologies for almost every practical and budgetary constraint; low-cost processing power and mass storage.
We're well on the way to seeing almost 30 billion devices connected to the IoT in the next couple of years, and there is no practical limit to this. We have enough IPv6 addresses to cover the earth's surface many times over with smart "things." We can easily collect the data we need to digitize the world.
The bigger challenge is to understand what that data are telling us and, from there, determine suitable responses. The sheer volume, velocity and variety of data we can now capture through IoT devices easily exceed the capacity of humans to analyze and extract meaningful insights manually. AI is the perfect companion to the IoT, capable of providing the assistance we need. Bringing them together as the AIoT is the key to tackling complex challenges such as sustainability. Studying the climate and humans' impact, the effects of using natural resources such as energy, and the prospects for controlling and managing these are subject to huge numbers of variables that are impossible for us to analyze effectively.
