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Fujitsu tech takes your pulse with your camera phone – popular science, mobile applications, mobile, Fujitsu – PC World Australia

My Comments

The platform smartphone or tablet is starting to play an increasingly important role on personal health and wellbeing without the need to be dependent on extra peripherals. It is becoming increasingly relevant for these devices so you can keep an electronic record of observations or easily send the data to a doctor or clinic via email or cloud data service. This would lead to these devices becoming part of various home-based healthcare setups like management of chronic illnesses or catering to the idea of “ageing at home” where older people can stay at home independently or under the care of their relatives, friends or paid carers.

Previously I reported on the use of a smartphone camera and app that implements machine vision for “reading” certain urinalysis sticks, avoiding the need to check against confusing charts. I even put forward the idea of using similar “fluid-analysis” sticks and a smartphone app to check other liquids like drinks for “spiking” or “loading” or to check the pH level in a swimming pool.

Now Fujitsu has developed software code that makes a small digital camera like that installed in a smartphone or tablet as machine vision for taking someone’s pulse.This may be seen to displace the medical skill where you “pinch” the patient’s wrist near their hand and count the beats that you feel for a minute measured by a stopwatch or watch with second hand.

This concept works on the fact that the brightness of one’s face changes slightly as their heart beats and uses the presence of green light to look for haemoglobin which is part of the red (just oxygenated) blood cells. The procedure requires 5 seconds versus a minute with the orthodox method and the software can assess when patient is still for improved accuracy.

Fujitsu hopes to commercialise the technology in 12 months but there are questions on whether they will implement it in their own equipment or license it to other developers. For it to be popular, they would have to license the algorithms to other software developers to integrate in to their projects and / or release a finished software product to the platform app stores for people to use on their devices.

They also see this technology as facilitating unobtrusive measurement of one’s pulse using the camera on a PC, smartphone, smart TV, or tablet this being part of long-term observational-healthcare situations like chronic illness management.

What I see of this is the ability to use the cost-effective and ubiquitous hardware i.e. the multi-functional smartphone, tablet or Ultrabook to work as part of remote health care and allied applications with minimum need to use extra peripherals.

Introduction

I am reviewing the Fujitsu LifeBook LH772 Series notebook computer which is what I would describe as being a “bridge” notebook computer.

This is where it is a 14” notebook computer that offers what is expected of a 15” mainstream laptop computer with such features as a large hard disk, a DVD burner, plenty of connectivity amingst other things.

Some of you guys may be shocked at my reviewing a pink-coloured laptop but it is available in a white or black colour as well as this pink colour. As I had mentioned with the Toshiba Satellite L730 that I previously reviewed, the white colour may also appeal to those of you who customise a portable computer by applying lots of decals on it.

For those of you who are interested, this notebook is the first one that has passed HomeNetworking01,info to be equipped with the Intel Ivy Bridge processor chipset which has quite a few benefits like improved integrated graphics abilities and integrated USB 3.0 support.

The computer itself

Aesthetics and Build Quality

This pink-coloured iteration of the Fujitsu LifeBook LH772 is finished in something that makes you think of neapolitan ice-cream where there is the pink body and the white keyboard.

It is a well-built computer with felt panelling underneath. This would make it less likely to slip on most furniture and make it more acceptable on that good French-polished dining table.

As well, through the times I have used this Fujitsu laptop, I have noticed no overheating even though there is a vent on the left hand side of this notebook.

User Interface

The transparent trackpad and trackwheel set in the acrylic finish alongside the buttons and fingerprint reader being obvious

The keyboard has that hard feel about it but you can still touch-type easily on it. There is also a full numeric keypad which would come in very handy for accounting and similar applications.

The trackpad and trackwheel are easy to locate by feel although you see a distinct square and circular area in the palmrest. As for the fingerprint reader, it is also easy to locate by feel and is very accurate under varying conditions including different temperature conditions or after I was eating some greasy food.

Audio and Video

Right hand side – DVD burner, 2 x USB 3.0 sockets

The Fujitsu LifeBook LH772 has the dual-mode graphics with Intel HD integrated graphics as well as NVIDIA GeForce discrete graphics. But this uses the NVIDIA Optimus automatic mode-switching facility so you don’t have to wory about whether you are using discrete graphics for performance or integrated graphics while on battery.

Left-hand side – VGA connector, 3.5mm audio-in jack, 3.5mm audio-out jack, 2 x USB 3.0 ports

This has yielded a smooth visual experience with on-demand video as well as regular computer use. One letdown with the display is the use of a glossy screen, which can be limiting if you have to dim the display to conserve battery life or have to deal with difficult lighting.

The Realtek sound subsystem had yielded the same “punch” when I watched a drama via video-on-demand and listened with headphones. The Internal speakers sound very similar to a  typical large portable radio or speaker dock especially when they play music. Of course, gaining a sound that has life in it from a laptop’s integrated speakers will be a difficult exercise due to the way these machines are designed.

Connectivity, Storage and Expansion

Rear view – Gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI port

The Fujitsu Lifebook LH772 has all the expected connections for a “bridge” notebook with VGA and HDMI video output, 3.5m audio input and output jacks, a Gigabit Ethernet jack and, best of all, 4 USB 3.0 ports. This makes me think that this notebook is future-ready as we connect more devices like 4G USB dongles and external hard disks to these computers.

The Wi-Fi wireless ticked the boxes as far as connectivity is concerned and there is a proper slide switch to enable and disable it for when you are flying. The Bluetooth subsystem is compliant to the 4.0 specification which allows it to work with sensor and controller that are required to work on a “watch” battery or 2 AA batteries for a long tine. This would work well for someone like a repairman who is using a Bluetooth 4.0 Smart thermometer to log the temperature of a fridge or air-conditioned space to check for efficiency or the behaviour of the thermostat.

The review sample came with a 750Gb hard disk and a DVD burner which would make it suitable as a main or sole computer for most people, rather than a secondary computer. As well, there is an SDXC card reader for downloading pictures from that digital camera.

Battery life

The battery can last the day with regular use including hotspot-surfing .

The long-lasting battery can allow the Fujitsu to work well for a long day of hotspot surfing at inner-city cafes and bars

It was able to play a DVD continuously for 4 hours, 15 minutes with the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless subsystems running. It would be considered average for laptops that implement the dual-mode graphics technology and fall back to the newer Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge integrated-graphics technology while on battery power.

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

One key limitation that may come about here is the price and availability of this series. I would like to see  some lower-price and mid-price configurations with the i5 processors and lesser hard disk, but available with all the different colours. Similarly, Fujitsu could also run with a fourth colour like a blue or bronze colour if someone wanted that “manly-looking” colour.

Conclusion

This Fujitsu LifeBook LH772 series has become, in my honest opinion, a viable 14” bridge notebook option that could be targeted at people who work from home and like the idea of a portable computer that can connect to an external display or many other applications where this class would appeal.

The third-generation Intel chipset and the NVIDIA discrete graphics with Optimus mode shift can allow this computer toe work well with most games, video playback and most image-manipulation tasks. It is also a representation of a laptop that is brought to the latest hardware standards like USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 4.0 Smart Ready and can take advantage of these when the time comes.

Introduction

I am reviewing the Fujitsu TH550M netbook-sized convertible notebook. This is a notebook computer which has a touchscreen or stylus-operable screen that swivels to become a tablet computer.

It is the first of this kind of notebook that I have had for review and is an example of what the proposed “netvertible” form factor could look like. This is although it runs the Windows 7 desktop operating system with touch and stylus operation built in to it as well as having full processor capabilities rather than the netbook-grade processor capabilities.

The computer itself

The display swivels to become a tablet

The Fujitsu TH550M convertible notebook is really about squeezing a quart in to a pint pot. Here, the “engine” is an Intel Core i3 processor which would be at home in a 13” ultraportable and the hard disk has a total capacity of 500Gb with cheaper variants having a 320Gb hard disk. Even the supplied operating system is Windows 7  Professional which is the “business package” version.

The notebook as a tablet

This is compared to a typical netbook which would be Intel Atom powered, have 250Gb on the hard disk at the most and run Windows 7 Home Premium. The only thing in common is the amount of RAM available which is 2Gb that is shared with the display memory.

Aesthetics and Build quality

The Fujitsu TH550M is about the size of a small book and is finished in a piano-black gloss finish. There is the sense of very good build quality especially with the flip-screen mechanism.

User interface

Like the typical netbook, this Fujitsu T-Series notebook uses a keyboard that is cramped and it may be difficult to touch-type accurately on this computer. There is also a very small trackpad with chrome-finished buttons and a rough tracking surface. This makes it easy to determine the sensitive area of the trackpad without you looking.

The main feature is the screen being a touchscreen that can respond to your fingers or the supplied stylus. The small screen size may make it hard to select certain operating-system icons like the icons on the edge of the windows.

Keyboard and trackpad

Audio and Video

This Fujitsu TH550M convertible notebook is driven by an Intel HD graphics subsystem which would be adequate for most tasks, even basic video playback. It can be connected to an external display via a VGA or HDMI connector.

The touchscreen is that typical glossy finish that can yield annoying reflections but in other cases, does the job adequately.

Battery life

The Fujitsu can last for many hours on regular tasks even though it was on the power-saving setting by default. This included an evening’s worth of use of the Social Web where I was monitoring and interacting with the #HackGate hashtag on Twitter during the ABC24 live broadcast of the inquiry in to the phone hacking scandal concerning the Murdoch press in the UK.

Other experience notes

I showed this computer to a woman friend and she had considered it as a viable “personal computer” that would suit her needs. This is after she had previously talked with us about personal-computing solutions like tablets and small laptop computers that had impressed her

Limitations and Points Of Improvement

An improvement that I would like to see for convertible notebooks would be a touch-optimised shell for the Windows 7 operating system, so these computers can be a worthy competitor to the iPad and Android tablet computers. This could include the extension of “newspaper apps” and “book-reading apps” to the Windows desktop platform rather than focusing them to the Apple iPad.

This situation may be rectified with the installation of Windows 8 on these convertible notebooks when it arrives or a dual-boot setup with Android and Windows 7 for current-issue machines.

For this model, I would like to have the cord that tethers the stylus to the computer able to retract in to the unit in a similar vein to the typical vacuum-cleaner’s retractable power cord. Here, this can avoid further damage to the cord, pen or notebook if the cord is snagged on items in the typical briefcase or laptop bag.

Conclusion

I would consider the Fujitsu TH550M as a computer for those who want a “bridge” between a tablet computer and a netbook; rather than carrying around an accessory keyboard with a 10” tablet computer like an iPad. This is more so i, offer the bf you mainly use line-of-business applications or create content.

As well, other members of the Fujitsu T-Series convertible notebook range would, with their different screen sizes, offer the bridge between the tablet and the regular notebook with this distinct interface kind.

News article

Fujitsu Lifebook TH700 brings convertible tablet magic at a more affordable price — Engadget

My comments

I had previously mentioned in this blog about a “netvertible” computer design which is a netbook with a touch screen that swivels, being considered an affordable Windows-based alternative to the Apple iPad.

Just lately, Fujitsu have upped the ante with a convertible subnotebook / ultraportable computer that has a “convertible” touchscreen design and have pitched it at a more affordable price. This is showing that the convertible touchscreen is appearing in the netbook and subnotebook / ultraportable classes of Windows-based portable computers which represent affordable implementations of this technology and as the cost to integrate a touchscreen into a laptop-class computer reduces, more of the computers in this class will end up with a swivel-head “convertible” design for a significantly-reduced premium.

Now, the only step that needs to happen for them to convincingly make Apple take notice would be to see e-publishing platforms that are used with the iPad be available for the Windows 7 platform. This is so that publishers can achieve the goal of “e-books”, “e-newspapers” and similar publications in a “design once, view anywhere” manner with their rights protected.

As a blog writer, I would like to see a heterogenous environment exist for tablet-based e-publishing that allows for innovation, competition and affordably-priced user-improvable equipment.