RAP - The Home Straight, page-139

First of let me state that I wish to apologise to @Lefevre for flaming him the other night. No excuse at all....just had a very bad day and his first post back seemed to be gloating about Mass General Hospital and it triggered something that made me spill a few choice words. As for the mods I flamed...sorry as well....not my normal style at all. Having been a MOD and a server forum owner on numerous forums...I should have known better but hey. We kiss and make up and life goes on as we know it.
I just wanted to address one post by Portsmouth.
I am not sure that you understand the technology involved and so I wanted to offer a different view on a couple of statements you have made.
Infrastructure requirement?
My understanding is the Resapp application will have everything it needs on the phone to do a diagnoses. The cough sound itself is not what is important. The sound bite created may or may not be transmitted to a cloud based server....I believe it won't need to be at all.
The algorithm used will be on the phone. This part of the program will fingerprint the sound on the phone and look for the triggers for disease. Once it finds those triggers….and there will be many to ensure its not capturing outside noise, it will then make a prognosis based on those triggers. Not unlike fingerprints…its looking for the unique sounds in order to make up its mind.
This algorithm(s) for each is only a few kilobytes in size and can easily be part of the program itself.
Not having internet access may not be an issue at all.
Database of coughs?
There is no need for a direct connection to a database of everyone’s coughs to refer to because they are using the unique DNA of the sounds….just like Shazam. Shazam listens to music and using unique identifiers can pinpoint which song it is. This is exactly like fingerprints or DNA……they look for unique qualities that meet a criteria.
So I think worrying about infrastructure in 3^rd world countries a bit of a misnomer in this case.
As for a fair price……interesting.
I think for USA and major developed countries the price per usage may be quite good for RAP and it will certainly add value to telehealth and practitioners in general. Not going to speculate on actual price though
For developing countries don’t be surprised to find them getting it very cheaply and maybe even free. The Gates Foundation are not above making money but also completely averse to having anyone know about it. They may stipulate that it’s made available very cheaply in the worst performing countries.
Just one man’s opinion.