Comments
jbtombes
5/6/2016 5:02:51 PM
User Rank Platinum
Reality check?
Best wishes to her. Curing diseases seems a nobler calling than building & selling $1,500 VR headsets. How MRI images on a consumer wearable can do that is beyond me, though I'm no M.D., or even Ph.D as Jepsen is (Optical Sciences, Brown).
batye
5/6/2016 5:47:06 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Reality check?
@jbtombes it nice to be able to do what you want and foloow your dreams...
srufolo1
5/6/2016 7:51:25 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Reality check?
I admire Jepsen's decision. It seems people these days are increasingly finding happiness in doing the things they really want to do rather than staying at jobs just because of a position or high pay. May she one day find a cure for breast cancer.
batye
5/9/2016 2:37:12 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Reality check?
@srufolo1 we never know but at least she is trying... and it very important...
dcawrey
5/7/2016 10:14:55 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Reality check?
MRI images from a consumer wearable? Given the cost of an MRI, that indeed could be world-changing for many people.
The ability for technology to bring down the costs of medical care is going to help extend people's lives. That seems like a more interesting pursuit over working at Facebook.
jbtombes
5/9/2016 11:05:50 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Reality check?
Well put @dcawrey. If this venture is about replacing MRIs with wearables, then I'd guess Siemens and GE are paying close attention. Not that others are incapable of shaking up the medical device industry. Google has developed a contact lens that can test for blood sugar levels that's supposed to be going into clinical trials this year.
mhhf1ve
5/9/2016 2:15:46 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Reality check?
> "If this venture is about replacing MRIs with wearables.."
I'm wondering.. is it really about shrinking MRI? It's going to be pretty tricky to get high resolution magnetic resonance images from a "small" magnetic field because -- according to the physics -- the higher the magnetic field, the higher the resolution... And it's not that easy to get what usually takes a large superconducting magnet -- into a small "wearable" size. That would be a major breakthrough in itself!
Perhaps this is more about getting imaging from something that's not quite MRI, but somehow related? If MRI machines could be portable and small... I'm sure there would be a lot more applications in security lines and other fields, too.
Maybe this is more about getting all kinds of medical imaging into a "wearables" size -- like ultrasound combined with some kind of very low level "CT scan"?
Ariella
5/9/2016 3:37:00 PM
User Rank Author
Re: Reality check?
@mhhf1ve this is just the kind of thing that makes Eric Topol such a fan of technology. He was quoted (well, paraphrased if you want to be technical about) here, http://www.radiologybusiness.com/topics/healthcare-economics/smartphone-disruptive-medicine, saying that a handheld MRI is on the way: "Of great relevance to radiology: Most medical imaging devices are undergoing miniaturization, beginning with ultrasound and Topol says hand-held MRI is not far behind. UCLA has devised a smartphone-sized device that can generate x-rays, he reports."
mhhf1ve
5/9/2016 7:05:30 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Reality check?
That's a very good link, there, but I'm still quite skeptical of the prediction that a "hand held MRI" is not far from becoming a reality. Perhaps I haven't kept up on the developments in high-magnetic-field-generating devices, but I thought there was a good reason why MRI machines required their own room and trained technicians to operate and maintain them.
Maybe there's better signal processing hardware that doesn't require such a high magnetic field to produce high resolution MRI data? Hmm. I'll have to look into that....
But ultimately, I think Facebook is going to need someone with different skills to promote the Oculus product going forward so that it can become a consumer device. Developing a new tool is much different from building market adoption and educating people in how to use it....
Facebook investing in VR tech is pretty forward-thinking, and I hope it pans out. But I personally don't see the value in it yet from the few demos I've encountered. I remember when Silicon Graphics was making cool 3D visualization tools with glasses that flickered in sync with a monitor to beam stereovision at a user's eyes in real time...
Ariella
5/9/2016 8:12:01 PM
User Rank Author
Re: Reality check?
@mhhf1ve Dr. Jonathan Rothberg, the man behind the Butterfy Network believes it's possible. He must have been fairly convincing for investors who came up with $100 million in funding for his company in 2014. See https://www.technologyreview.com/s/532166/with-100-million-entrepreneur-sees-path-to-disrupt-medical-imaging/:
"I set out to make a super-low-cost version of this $6 million machine, to make it 1,000 times cheaper, 1,000 times faster, and a hundred times more precise."
Rothberg claims there's a "secret sauce" to Butterfly's technology, but he won't reveal it. But it may have as much to do with clever device and circuit design as overcoming the physical limits and manufacturing problems that CMUT technology has faced so far.
mhhf1ve
5/10/2016 7:47:10 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Reality check?
> "Dr. Jonathan Rothberg, the man behind the Butterfy Network believes it's possible"
Oh. Yah, miniaturized ultrasound is totally possible. Ultrasound technology doesn't have that many requirements, and the signal processing for it is very mature.
*MRI* tech, on the other hand, is an entirely different beast. High field magnets and flipping the nuclear spins of atoms is still a pretty tricky thing to do (looking at changes in a "parts per million" range or less). Making a handheld or wearable MRI machine is going to be a real breakthrough -- and I'm not sure the science even exists yet.
I think I vaguely recall there being a "different kind" of magnetic resonance that relied more on the radio pulses instead of the magnetic field... but... that's a kind of MRI that isn't even used at all, as far as I know. So making a miniturized version might be possible, but they'd first have to make it work to produce images that could be interpreted by medical professionals....
mhhf1ve
5/10/2016 7:51:25 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Reality check?
I actually wonder if the product that Mary Lou Jepsen will work on isn't simply an "augmented reality" way to display regular MRI data? Making an actual miniature MRI machine is an incredibly difficult project, but maybe they've got something in the works that truly is amazing -- producing localized high magneitc fields without superconducting materials....
'tever
Let's reframe this for what it is. There is HUGE financial opportunity -- especially for experienced tech-heads from Silicon Valley -- in next-gen medical technologies. Jepsen did not leave her company to be a missionary in a developing nation. She's pursuing another business opportunity.
Re: 'tever
Walking away though is courageous--and yes if it means a lucrative business opportunity, more power to her.
Re: 'tever
If VR is going to be more than a cute trick for consumers to play with, it's got to get to work on things that make it essential to other businesses. Making the advances in medical imaging of the last 40 years easily available at the small-and-remote clinic level certainly qualifies as a shrewd business initiative.
Making it sound like anything other than a simple choice of target market, however, is merely good corporate PR. The next frontier might be military or police, i.e. killing more people or controlling more dissent via remote; it might be better circuses to go with the bread; it might be better control for hazardous-environment drones to get human bodies out of fighting fires and deep rock mining; almost anything, really. This particular frontier just happens to lend itself to a successful PR initiative.
mpouraryan
5/9/2016 11:48:57 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: 'tever
It is still a developing concept and not truly ready for "prime time"--no question. I wonder whether those who embrace Augmented Reality will get a leg up?
mhhf1ve
5/10/2016 7:56:44 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: 'tever
> "Making the advances in medical imaging of the last 40 years easily available at the small-and-remote clinic level certainly qualifies as a shrewd business initiative."
Remote medicine is going to be a huge business -- if any patient can been "virtually" seen by doctors with highly speciailized training. It doesn't look like we're training enough doctors, so the demand for specialized medicine is going to just grow as people are aware that the medical technology exists -- and that patients can live longer and better lives with the right treatments.
Ariella
5/10/2016 8:30:20 PM
User Rank Author
Re: 'tever
mhhf1ve telemedicine is an important development. In this article, it's called, " one of the biggest digital health care trends in 2015,"
JohnBarnes
5/10/2016 9:00:11 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: 'tever
In the United States, at least, it doesn't look like we're training enough doctors because a bit over half the fully qualified applicants are not allowed into medical school, in order to keep prices up and doctors well-off. This is not a problem that requires much in the way of technology to solve.
Access to specialists will be a great deal more useful if there's a fully trained primary care physician at the remote site.
mhhf1ve
5/10/2016 9:15:12 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: 'tever
> "In the United States, at least, it doesn't look like we're training enough doctors..."
I've always wondered about the economics of the AMA and how doctors are trained. There seems to be a hard cut-off for training doctors in the US in certain medical schools.
I thought the "OD" (instead of "MD") schools were an alternative to try to alleviate the doctor shortage, but I don't think it's really caught on?
Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_MD_and_DO_in_the_United_States
There are plenty of professional organizations -- lawyers and accountants and even hair stylists have training requirements, but they don't necessarily limit the number of people in their respective fields like doctors do... I'm not sure how the history of medical training has allowed this to happen?
mpouraryan
5/10/2016 11:31:19 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: 'tever
@mpouraryan: With all the nerds like us here on this telco tech site, I'm guessing you didn't need the note explaining who McCoy is. ;)
vnewman
5/11/2016 2:33:37 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: 'tever
@Joe - it took me a minute to figure it out I must admit
But I digress - isn't it strange that she is leaving FB in order to do this when Zuck just dedicated billions to curing ALL diseases by the end of century? I mean, doesn't it make sense to stay under the auspiciousness that is Zuckerberg who is the one person who could maybe single-handedly make it happen???
Re: 'tever
@vnewman: Zuck's just paying for it. He's not going to medical school and doing the research himself or administering the vaccines or treatment himself.
I sincerely doubt Zuck (or anyone, for that matter) is "the one person" who can or will eradicate the world of disease.
mpouraryan
5/11/2016 3:57:48 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: 'tever
I know @Joe...but you know it is the "teacher" in me I guess.
:))
JohnBarnes
5/12/2016 7:39:24 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: 'tever
mhf1ve,
It's a long, complicated story. Back when doctors had fewer than 20 drugs that worked and most of what they knew how to do had been known since ancient times (i.e. down till almost 1900), being a medical doctor in the US was a trade more than a profession, with apprenticeships the norm. Medical-school trained doctors were felt to be superior but they were rare, and most of the "new tech" between the Civil War and WW1 was freely available to everyone, MD or not, and understandable (germ theory and its implications about scrubbing before surgery and debriding wounds, for example).
A series of scandals and uproars, many pretty horrible, propelled state medical societies into a situation where they could write rules -- which they did in a fashion that could best be described as "what every union dreams of." And for lucrative (and otherwise rewarding) professions, the first step is to make it harder to get into the club.
One of many reasons I support single-payer government insurance with the gloves off for negotiation. Want a medical license? Go to a medical school that takes all qualified applicants, definition of qualified to be set by a board with a citizen majority. There's a psychological/religious component to medicine, and people will probably always insist on a higher level of qualification than is really needed, but realistically they should be compensated about like engineers or CPAs -- comfortable enough, but it should not be a license to print money, and there should be enough competition to force some of the profession to serve the economic margin.
jbtombes
5/9/2016 10:45:31 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: 'tever
She's leveraged her unique set of skills (EE and visual arts at Brown before the Ph.D) for FB, Google before that, and One Laptop Per Child, as Mike mentions, the non-profit that redesigned computers for affordability.
clrmoney
5/7/2016 10:39:48 AM
User Rank Platinum
facebook exec
Well good for her doing that because to me facebook is destructive the only pluus side about it that it is good for marketing and advertising business etc.
Re: facebook exec
This is another Profile in Courage as I see it just as this one I saw--hopefully I'll be able to be in a position to do some good someday!!
Please enjoy:
http://fortune.com/2016/05/02/venture-capitalist-quits-to-become-middle-school-math-teacher/
:))
batye
5/9/2016 2:37:52 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: facebook exec
@mpouraryan thank for the link, interesting to know...
mpouraryan
5/9/2016 11:47:15 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: facebook exec
The challenge, @batye, is for all to realize the lessons. In the quest to "grow", some may end up forgetting--and those who do not learn and embrace the lessons of history are bound to repeat it. The tech Graveyard is full of it--including Blackberry--right?
batye
5/10/2016 1:58:49 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: facebook exec
@mpouraryan Blackberry bended over trying to be nice to everyone who have power... but for the eyes of the law we are all = ... or don't we... BB paid the price at the end...
Re: facebook exec
@mpour: I think we all realize by now that mega-companies can wither and die.
Unless, of course, they're in an industry deemed important enough to qualify for a bailout. ;)
mpouraryan
5/9/2016 11:50:50 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: facebook exec
Time will tell--whether they stay "paranoid" is the key. I am sure a lot of folks miss Andy Grove today as they seem to have forgotten his ultimate admonition as Intel got left in the "dust" during the transformation that we've all been witness to.
mhhf1ve
5/9/2016 10:36:12 AM
User Rank Platinum
Meh.
Sounds like just a normal "I'm done with this project" move to me. The "curing diseases" part is just some PR euphemism. Going to work on another wearable tech project is probably a far less stressful job than staying at FB and trying to make Oculus into a viable revenue stream for a social media platform....
Re: Meh.
I guess none of us know her motivation for leaving, but she seems to have a history of being a do gooder. From the CNET article:
Jepsen is no stranger to charitable causes. She was a co-founder of the One Laptop Per Child, an initiative that aims to provide low-costlaptops to children in developing countries, as well as lead inventor and architect of the $100 laptop.
Re: Meh.
Not to trash her, but I never was a fan of that charity. Forget clean water and curing malaria; let's send these kids some laptops! :/
mhhf1ve
5/11/2016 2:59:02 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Meh.
> " let's send these kids some laptops!"
The OLPC project didn't even really need to exist, did it? We now have some laptops that cost less than $100 without any charity. It reminds me of the X Prize that challenged scientists to sequence genomes for less than $100... and then had to be canceled because technology had already brought the price down well below that.
The OLPC devices were pretty "stripped down" devices, too. And now you can get a pretty decent tablet for $100 or less. I think India tried to produce a tablet for just a few dollars....
Re: Meh.
@mhh: Most charities don't really need to exist, I daresay (esp. considering the percentage of the money they take in that actually goes to helping those in need). Meanwhile, other important charities don't get so much press or publicity. :/
clrmoney
5/9/2016 11:04:03 AM
User Rank Platinum
facebook exec
I think she is making the right choice by leaving faceook to be bigger and better things.
elizabethv
5/19/2016 8:20:53 AM
User Rank Platinum
Life isn't All About Money
I think this is great, I wish she had received similar support from Facebook. Life isn't all about money, success isn't measured in dollars. You have to feel good about what you do, what you contribute. I made decent money as an operator of a Sonic Drive-In. But at the end of the day, I felt like I was just contributing to the obesity rates of this country. So I had to leave. Now, my "day job" (which is a night job) is to take care of at-risk teenagers. The pay is about half, but when I go home, I know that I'm making a difference. I feel better with myself, who I am, and the decisions I'm making in this life. That is far more important than money. Mary Lou is doing the same thing. I wish everyone would go that route.
dlr5288
5/22/2016 6:09:28 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Life isn't All About Money
Ah I loved everything about this post! Great points and so true.
I think sometimes people get so wrapped up in money and income that they don't realize the other important factors in life. It's important to be proud and happy with what you do and be good to others, regardless of the pay.
freehe
5/22/2016 7:54:24 PM
User Rank Platinum
dlr5288
5/24/2016 3:49:10 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Facebook Exec Leaves
Thank you for the links! Very interesting.
I too applaud her for finally taking the plunge and leaving to do what she believes is best for her. I also admire her for doing something, not based off of money, but because she feels it's the right thing to do.
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