__ Just Outta Beta __
__ The Paperless Doctor's Office __
This year, Americans will drop more than a trillion dollars - 13 percent of the nation's GDP - at the doctor's office. Insurance companies will process about 4 billion claims; nearly half of those will be handled manually. Administrative costs alone account for 20 to 30 percent of the total amount spent on health care each year.
The prescription for the overburdened health-care system could very well be the paperless claims process developed by RealMed. The company plans to sidestep the mountains of paperwork by giving smartcards to patients, installing software at doctors' offices, and operating a private network - in effect creating a common digital platform for patients, practitioners, and insurers. It works like this: The patient presents the smartcard to the doctor, the RealMed system verifies patient insurance eligibility, and data is automatically sent to the payment center, which then authorizes a transfer of funds.
Recently, attempts to revamp the claims system have focused on electronic data interchange. Unfortunately, EDI treats the symptoms, not the illness: It demands that claims be filled out by hand, entered into a computer and transmitted electronically, and then converted back to paper for payment. With RealMed, the entire rigmarole is electronic. Apart from substantial savings, the system can shave the time it takes to receive a reimbursement from 42 days to about 5 minutes. Now that's a health-care initiative.
__ Chat Attack __
The new online game FireTeam takes Internet chat to the next level - actual talking, that is. Employing the latest voice-over-IP technology, the title gathers two teams of up to four players and pits them against each other. Combat situations such as a hostage crisis or a cyberfootball deathmatch reward team play with each squad yapping out loud to outwit and outmaneuver the opposing force.
__ Mini Memory __
With chip prices dropping through the floor, everyone knows that memory comes cheap. Now, with Iomega's clik! drive, memory also comes small. Intended for use with handheld devices such as the PalmPilot, clik! is a 40-Mbyte hard drive that arrives in a package about the size of a silver dollar. Among other potential applications, clik! allows you to download and store email from a digital cell phone, turning your dialer into a mini computer.
__ Meta-Physicist __
Whether teaching quantum physics or developing the atomic bomb, the late Richard Feynman's scientific endeavors profoundly affected the 20th century. In The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist, Feynman ventured beyond his typical subject matter and into the realms of politics, religion, and life. Based on a three-part lecture originally delivered in 1963, the new book even details his plan for overhauling the English language.
__ Binding Email __
Is there anything email can't do? Well, yes. For one, electronic forms have failed to meet the requirements for legally binding documents. That problem - along with a whole lotta office paper - might disappear when UWI.Com releases the next iteration of its InternetForms System. The company plans to build the authentication power of digital signatures into its existing product, which uses the Universal Forms Description Language to ensure that electronic contracts meet most legal and industry standards for binding documents.
__ Convergence Comeback __
Although much ballyhooed, the idea of melding television's high-bandwidth imagery with the Net's interactivity is often reduced to slow-motion fastballs or some textual data sent to your TV through the vertical blanking interval. Yet, watching baseball at 6 frames per second obscures the game's fanfare, while text adds little depth to the Beverly Hills 90210 experience.
This is the conundrum faced by SimplyTV, which on April 5 began transmitting 1,000 full-length televisual shows over the Net. Viewers who log on have had to make do with RealVideo, which streams images at about half the frame rate of broadcast television, and a 3-by-4-inch picture.
Hoping to get past the bandwidth obstacles, SimplyTV has cut a deal with satellite TV provider EchoStar Communications. The two companies will broadcast SimplyTV's current fare, which includes content from Time Warner and CNN, plus live concerts, boxing matches, and comedy shows from EchoStar's satellites directly to your PC.
But SimplyTV hasn't foresaken the Net entirely. During satellite programming breaks, advertisements are transmitted over the Internet. And these interstitial ads - streaming video spots that have more in common with 30-second TV pitches than the Web's banner offerings - are targeted to individual Web viewers, allowing for immediate impulse buying. Indeed, the combination of popular programming and targeted advertising should assure that SimplyTV doesn't strike out.
