Within five years, you may be able to walk into a psychiatric clinic and play a computer game that analyses your decision-making and figures out whether you have a range of mental health disorders. Instead of a clinician asking about how you’re sleeping and eating, you may be asked to play a game and be assessed using AI. This could revolutionise mental health diagnosis. https://blog.csiro.au/computer-game-to-diagnose-depression-and-bipolar/

An Austrian company was recently awarded funding from US Department Homeland Security (DHS) to develop blockchain security technology to combat forgery and counterfeiting. By helping DHS implement interoperability between multiple data formats and blockchain-related endeavors— ultimately implementing an innovative distributed ledger solution to combat forgery and counterfeiting in immigration and citizenship documents. https://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2019/09/26/news-release-dhs-st-awards-143k-blockchain-interoperability Image by rawpixel from Pixabay

In time for Tech23, local alum and Adelaide's emerging scaleup, Presagen has partnered with DTEX & US-federally funded R&D group Mitre.org, to apply its AI technology to a hard cyber challenge - detecting & mitigating insider threats. While initial healthtech focussed, Presagen's AI platform trains on data that is distributed globally without needing to move it or be centralised - an innovation in itself! Presagen is also solving a more general and critical problem in AI – building robust, scalable and responsible AI products. Watch this space. https://www.presagen.com/single-post/2019/09/28/Presagen-to-collaborate

Many a company has talked up the idea of using non-invasive input devices to tap into our neurons and make things like text entry possible just by thinking. The possibilities for the less able bodied and other applications are endless. So far, the progress is either in greater R&D funding & university collaborations (always a positive step) or lots of hyped marketing (not so good). Facebook's latest acquisition could be a closer move towards productisation of this technology. https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/23/facebook-buys-startup-building-neural-monitoring-armband/

An app is being tested by The London College of Fashion which aims to change the way consumers shop online by allowing us to try on clothing “virtually”. The app allows you to create an avatar of yourself, where you are then able to see what you look like in those items. Usually consumers decide whether they like the items purchased online after purchasing it and trying it on. The aim of the app is to decrease the ever growing percentage of online returns by allowing us to see how we look in clothes before purchasing it online. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07nrrmc

Columbia University School of Engineering and Applied Science researchers have designed a hearing aid that can read brain activity to determine which voice a hearing aid user is most interested in listening to and then focus in on it. The resulting ?cognitive hearing aid? could be transformative in settings like crowded rooms in which multiple people are speaking at the same time. While the latest hearing aids feature technology designed to suppress background noise, these hearing aids have no way of knowing which voices a wearer wants to listen to. https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/cognitive-hearing-aid-columbia/