Technologies

Google Updates Health Information, Search Features at ‘Check Up’ Event

Updates may make it easier to re-enroll in Medicaid and find low-cost health clinics. Google also expands its AI initiatives for health care.

Google on Tuesday unveiled updates to Search that are designed to make it easier to find affordable health care. The announcement came as part of The Check Up, an annual event put on by the search giant’s health branch. The event also included news on other efforts, including advancements in artificial intelligenceprojects aimed at increasing health care access.

Notably, Google said it’s looking to make it simpler to find re-enrollment information for Medicaid, a health insurance program for people with limited income, when users open Google to search. Requirements to re-enroll were put on pause during the pandemic, but that pause expires at the end of March. This means people with Medicaid will need to renew their information soon.

Which state you live in determines when your health care coverage may be affected, as PBS reports, but you’ll need to confirm your personal information, eligibility requirements and other information to stay insured. Google said a Search update will help with that by making it easier to find renewal information and log in to your state portal.

Finding affordable health care online at free or low-cost clinics may be a little easier. The company promised you’ll soon be able to find and identify such providers when searching online, including community health clinics. Google also said it’s using Duplex, its conversational AI system, to contact health care providers and verify their information posted online.

On the mental health front, Google said it’s increasing the number of crisis helplines that appear at the top of Google searches related to suicide, domestic violence and other crises. Through a partnership with ThroughLine, those crisis lines can be found in more countries and languages.

Google also said it’s adding more medical partners to some of its AI projects, with the hope of increasing health equality by simplifying medical screenings and tools. One of these partnerships is with Jacaranda, a nonprofit in Kenya that’s trying to improve outcomes for pregnant women and their children by developing simplified ultrasounds with less expensive equipment through AI. Expensive ultrasound equipment and required training for specialists may be a health care barrier in some parts of the world with higher maternal mortality rates.

Tapping AI further for medical diagnostics, Google said it’s partnering with the Mayo Clinic to develop an improved method of «contouring» for radiotherapy used in cancer treatment. Because radiotherapy uses a high dose of radiation to kill cancer cells, careful steps by the health care team must be taken to outline or «contour» the tumor to limit radiation in surrounding parts of the body. Google said it hopes its AI can save the care team time during this process.

Other AI projects at Google include efforts to create a better tuberculosis-screening method and an ultrasound that can detect breast cancer — though there’s no timeline yet for when any of these projects will be available for patients beyond the research stage.

Other health notes include Google’s update to Fitbit’s health metrics dashboard, as well as Google’s continued work on Med-PaLM, an AI tool designed to answer medical questions and, hopefully, provide reasoning. On Tuesday, Google said its improved version, the Med-PaLM 2, performed at an expert level when answering the types of questions you’d be asked on a medical licensing exam. In a blog post, Google added that more work is needed to «make sure this technology can work in real-world settings.»

Technologies

Starlink Plans to Send 42K Satellites Into Space. That Could Be Bad News for the Ozone

Technologies

Scary Survey Results: Teen Drivers Are Often Looking at Their Phones

New troubling research found that entertainment is the most common reason teens use their phones behind the wheel, followed by texting and navigation.

A new study reveals that teen drivers in the US are spending more than one-fifth of their driving time distracted by their phones, with many glances lasting long enough to significantly raise the risk of a crash. Published in the journal Traffic Injury Prevention and released on Thursday, the research found that, on average, teens reported looking at their phones during 21.1% of every driving trip. More than a quarter of those distractions lasted two seconds or longer, which is an amount of time widely recognized as dangerous at highway speeds.

Most distractions tied to entertainment, not emergencies

The top reason teens said they reached for their phones behind the wheel was for entertainment, cited by 65% of respondents. Texting (40%) and navigation (30%) were also common. Researchers emphasized that these distractions weren’t typically urgent, but rather habitual or social.

Teens know the risks

The study includes survey responses from 1,126 teen drivers across all four US regions, along with in-depth interviews with a smaller group of high schoolers. Most participants recognized that distracted driving is unsafe and believed their parents and peers disapproved of the behavior.

But many teens also assumed that their friends were doing it anyway, pointing to a disconnect between personal values and perceived social norms.

Teens think they can resist distractions

Interestingly, most teens expressed confidence in their ability to resist distractions. That belief, researchers suggest, could make it harder to change behavior unless future safety campaigns specifically target these attitudes.

The study’s lead author, Dr. Rebecca Robbins of Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said interventions should aim to shift social norms while also emphasizing practical steps, such as enabling «Do Not Disturb» mode and physically separating drivers from their devices.

«Distracted driving is a serious public health threat and particularly concerning among young drivers,» Robbins said. «Driving distracted doesn’t just put the driver at risk of injury or death, it puts everyone else on the road in danger of an accident.»

What this means for parents and educators

The researchers say their findings can help guide educators and parents in developing more persuasive messaging about the dangers of distracted driving. One of the recommendations is that adults need to counter teens’ beliefs that phone use while driving is productive or harmless.

While the study’s qualitative component was limited by a small and non-urban sample, the authors believe the 38-question survey they developed can be used more broadly to assess beliefs, behaviors and the effectiveness of future safety efforts.

Technologies

Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Con Issues? It Might Just Be Your HDMI Cable

Make sure to use the Switch 2 cable included with the new gaming console.

As the Switch 2 continues to sell in the millions for Nintendo, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there’d be some issues with the console. It appears, however, that one problem Switch 2 owners are facing is actually just a matter of using the wrong cable.

Reddit users have posted about their Joy-Cons disconnecting when they’re playing on their Switch 2 while it’s docked, an issue spotted earlier by IGN. It does appear that, luckily, the issue can be resolved by using the included HDMI cable for the Switch 2 rather than an older, slower one — including the cable that came with the original Nintendo Switch.

Nintendo laid out the solution on its support page for when the Joy-Con 2 starts disconnecting from the console:

Confirm that you’re using an «Ultra High Speed» HDMI cable to connect the dock to the TV. If it’s not Ultra High Speed, your console won’t perform as expected when docked.
If you’re using a different cable than the one that came with the console, it should have printed on the cable that it’s «Ultra High Speed.»
The HDMI cable that came with the Nintendo Switch is not «Ultra High Speed» and should not be used with the Nintendo Switch 2 dock.

Nintendo didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the source of this issue.

Since the Switch 2 launch, many gamers have come to realize that Nintendo’s new console is very picky about what cables are connected to it. This goes for the HDMI cable as well as the power cable.

While the new and old Switch share the same name, they don’t share the same components. The Switch 2 is a huge upgrade in graphics power over the 2017 console, which means it needs the appropriate power supply. Not providing the Switch 2 with sufficient power could likely cause some issues, especially if the system has to do a lot of work to run a game.