Alexa and Aging: more on voice as THE interface for “SmartAging”

Posted on 31st May 2016 in aging, health, home automation, Internet of Things, m-health, privacy, Quantified Self, security, seniors, SmartAging
Amazon Alexa & services it can trigger!

Amazon Echo & services it can trigger!

I predict every elderly person will soon have a personal home assistant, ready to respond to their every command.

However, that home health aide may not be human, but sit on the kitchen counter, and look suspiciously like Amazon’s breakthough IoT device, The Echo.

The late Mark Weiser, “the father of the Internet of Things,” famously predicted that “the best computer is a quiet, invisible servant,” and that’s certainly the potential with Echo, or the just announced Google Assistant (how sexy is that name? I like the fact it’s so impersonal. Let’s you fire one voice “assistant” and hire another without becoming personally attached, LOL), or the much-rumored Apple version, which might also include a camera (disclaimer: while I work part-time at an Apple Store, I ain’t privy to any inside dope, no way, no how).

That’s particularly the case when it comes to seniors, and my SmartAging vision of an IoT-based future for them combining Quantified Self health monitoring devices that can motivate seniors to improve their fitness levels, and smart home devices that can make it easier to manage their homes as they age, to avoid costly and soul-deadening institutionalization (or, even better, combining the two, as with one of my favorite IFTTT “recipes,”  programming your Jawbone to wake you gently at the best time in your sleep cycle, AND gradually turn on your Hue lights. How better for a senior — or anyone — to start their day on a positive note (OK, I know what you’re thinking: better turn on the coffee maker automatically!).

      KidsMD for Amazon Alexa

What really got me thinking about the advantages of a voice-activated future for seniors was a recent story about a similar app for the other end of the age spectrum, developed by our Children’s Hospital, for Alexa: KidsMD. What better for a harried mom or dad, with his or her hands full, AND a sick child to boot, than to simply ask for advice on temperature, fever and the like? That got me thinking that the same would apply to seniors as well, needing advice with some of the unwanted aspects of aging (I could mention here an example from a senior I care for, but that would be most unpleasant…). As I’ve said before, this would be helpful under any circumstances, but when the person needing help is a frail, tech-averse senior, it would be superb if s/he only had to speak a simple command or request to get needed help, or advice on something such as the proper amount of an over-the-counter drug to take.

There are tons of other life-improving reasons for such an approach for seniors, including:

Of course, and I can’t emphasize this enough, especially since seniors are already victims of so many scamming tricks, because these counter-top devices are always on, listening to you,  and because much of their possible use could be for reporting confidential health or financial data, privacy and security MUST be THE top priority in designing any kind of voice-activated app or device for seniors. Think of them as the canaries in the coal mine in this regard: protecting vulnerable seniors’ privacy and security should be the acid test of all voice-activated apps and devices for people of all ages.

Having said all that, as I noted in a piece last week about what a stunning combination of services Amazon has put together to become the dominant player in the retail IoT sector, one of those offerings is the $100 million Alexa fund to fuel advances in the voice-activated arena.  I’m ready to put their money where my mouth is  (LOL) in this regard, to design voice-activated devices and services for seniors.  If you’d like to partner, E-mail me!!

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IoT’s Future Makes iPhone Privacy Case Even More Important

Posted on 25th February 2016 in data, Essential Truths, government, Homeland Security, Internet of Things, privacy, security, US government

Yesterday’s NYT had the most thoughtful piece I’ve seen about the long-term implications of the FBI’s attempts to get Apple to add a “backdoor” to the iPhone that would allow the agency to examine the data on the phone of terrorist Syed Farook, who, along with his wife, killed 14 late last year.

The growth and potential impact of the Internet of Things on our lives will only make the significance of this landmark case greater over time, and I stand totally with Apple CEO Tim Cook (“this is not a poll, this is about the future”) on what I think is a decision that every thinking person concerned about the growing role of technology in our lives should support. It’s that important!

First, my standard disclaimer about Apple, i.e., that I work part-time at the Apple Store, but know as much as you do about Apple’s decision-making process and have zero impact on it.  Now for a couple of other personal considerations to establish my bona fides on the issue:

  1. I’m pretty certain I was the first person to suggest (via a Boston Globe op-ed two weeks [“Fight Terrorism With Palm Pilots”] or so after 9/11 that the early mobiles could be used to help the public report possible threats and/or respond to terrorism.  Several years later I wrote the first primitive app for first-generation PDAs (“Terrorism Survival Planner”) on the subject, and did consulting work for both the Department of Homeland Security and the CTIA on how first-generation smart phones could be used as part of terrorism prevention.
    I take this possibility seriously, support creative use of smartphone in terrorism preparation and response, and also realize that cellphone contents can not only help document cases, but also possibly prevent future ones.
  2. As I’ve said before, I used to do corporate crisis management consulting, so I understand how fear can cloud people’s judgment on issues of this sort.
  3. I’m also proud to come from a 300+ year line of attorneys, most particularly my younger brother, Charles, who had an award-winning career defending indigent clients on appeal, including many where it might have been tempting to have abridged their civil rights because of the heinous nature of the crimes they were accused of committing.

I like to think of myself as a civil libertarian as well, because I’ve seen too many instances where civil liberties were abridged for one extremely unlikeable person, only to have that serve as precedent for future cases where good people were swallowed up and unjustly convicted  (yea, Innocence Project!).

And this case comes right on the heels of my recent blog posts about how federal authorities such as James Clapper were already taking far too much (IMHO) interest in obtaining a treasure trove of data from our home IoT devices.

All in all, there’s a very real threat that the general public may become rightly paranoid about the potential threats to their privacy from cell phones and IoT devices and toss ’em in the trash can. 

That’s all by way of introduction to Farhad Manjoo’s excellent piece in the Times exploring the subtleties of Apple’s decision to fight the feds (see Tim Cook’s ABC interview here) — with plenty of emphasis on how it would affect confidence in the IoT.

As his lede said:

“To understand what’s at stake in the battle between Apple and the F.B.I. over cracking open a terrorist’s smartphone, it helps to be able to predict the future of the tech industry.”

Manjoo went on to detail the path we’re heading down, in which the IoT will play an increasingly prominent place (hmm: in my ardor for Amazon’s Echo, I’d totally ignored the potential for the feds or bad guys or both [sometimes in our history, they’ve sadly been one and the same, for more details, consider one J. Edgar Hoover..] to use that unobtrusive little cylinder on your kitchen counter to easily monitor everything you and your family say! Chilling, non?).

Read and weep:

“Consider all the technologies we think we want — not just better and more useful phones, but cars that drive themselves, smart assistants you control through voice or household appliances that you can monitor and manage from afar. Many will have cameras, microphones and sensors gathering more data, and an ever more sophisticated mining effort to make sense of it all. Everyday devices will be recording and analyzing your every utterance and action.

“This gets to why tech companies, not to mention we users, should fear the repercussions of the Apple case. Law enforcement officials and their supporters argue that when armed with a valid court order, the cops should never be locked out of any device that might be important in an investigation.

“But if Apple is forced to break its own security to get inside a phone that it had promised users was inviolable, the supposed safety of the always-watching future starts to fall apart. If every device can monitor you, and if they can all be tapped by law enforcement officials under court order, can anyone ever have a truly private conversation? Are we building a world in which there’s no longer any room for keeping secrets?” (my emphasis)

Ominously, he went on to quote Prof. Neil Richards, an expert prognosticator on the growing threats to privacy from our growing dependence on personal technology:

“’This case can’t be a one-time deal,’ said Neil Richards, a professor at the Washington University School of Law. ‘This is about the future.’

“Mr. Richards is the author of “Intellectual Privacy,” a book that examines the dangers of a society in which technology and law conspire to eliminate the possibility of thinking without fear of surveillance. He argues that intellectual creativity depends on a baseline measure of privacy, and that privacy is being eroded by cameras, microphones and sensors we’re all voluntarily surrounding ourselves with.

“’If we care about free expression, we have to care about the ways in which we come up with interesting things to say in the first place,’ he said. ‘And if we are always monitored, always watched, always recorded, we’re going to be much more reluctant to experiment with controversial, eccentric, weird, ‘deviant’ ideas — and most of the ideas that we care about deeply were once highly controversial.’”

Manjoo also points out that laws on these issues often lag years behind technology (see what Rep. Ted Lieu, one of only four Representatives to have studied computer science, said about the issue).

Chris Sogogian, the ACLU’s chief technologist, brings it home squarely to the IoT’s future:

“’What we really need for the Internet of Things to not turn into the Internet of Surveillance is a clear ruling that says that the companies we’re inviting into our homes and bedrooms cannot be conscripted to turn their products into roving bugs for the F.B.I.,’ he said.”

Indeed, and, as I’ve said before, it behooves IoT companies to both build in tough privacy and security protections themselves, and become actively involved in coalitions such as the Online Trust Alliance.

The whole article is great, and I strongly urge you to read the whole thing.

IMHO, this case is a call to arms for the IoT industry, and the hottest places in hell will be reserved for those who continue to sit at their laptops planning their latest cool app and/or device, without becoming involved in collaborative efforts to find detailed solutions that preserve our personal privacy and civil liberties on one hand, and, on the other, realize there’s a legitimate need to use the same technology to catch bad guys and protect us. It will take years, and it will require really, really hard work.

Oh, and it will also take the wisdom of Solomon for the courts to judge these issues. Sorry to be a partisan, but please feel free to let Sen. McConnell know how you feel about his unilateral decision to keep the Supreme Court deadlocked on this and other crucial issues for well over a year. Yes, even King Solomon couldn’t get past the Senate this year…

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Apple & IBM partnership in Japan to serve seniors a major step toward “Smart Aging”

Posted on 1st May 2015 in aging, collaboration, data, government, health, Internet of Things, m-health, mobile, paradigm shift, Quantified Self, seniors, smart home, SmartAging

As Bob Seger and I prepare to turn 70 (alas, no typo) on Wednesday (as long as he’s still singing “Against the Wind” I know I’m still rockin’) my thoughts turn to my “Smart Aging” paradigm, which combines Quantified Self devices that can change our relationships with doctors into a partnership and give us encouragement to do more fitness activities and smart home devices that make it easier for seniors to run their homes and avoid institutionalization.

That’s why I was delighted to read this week about Apple (obligatory disclaimer: I work part-time at The Apple Store, especially with “those of a certain age,” but am not privy to any of their strategy, and my opinions are solely my own) and IBM teaming with Japan Post (hmm: that’s one postal service that seems to think creatively. Suspect that if one B. Franklin still ran ours, as he did in colonial days, we’d be more creative as well…) to provide iPads to Japan’s seniors as part of Japan Post’s “integrated lifestyle support group” (the agency will actually go public later this year, and the health services will be a key part of its services).

Apple and IBM announced, as part of their “enterprise mobility” partnership that will also increase iPads’ adoption by businesses, that they will provide 5 million iPads with senior-friendly apps to Japanese seniors by 2020.  IBM’s role will be to develop app analytics and cloud services and “apps that IBM built specifically for elderly people .. for medication adherence … exercise and diet, and … that provide users with access to community activities and supporting services, including grocery shopping and job matching.”

The overall goal is to use the iPads and apps to connect seniors with healthcare services and their families.  I can imagine that FaceTime and the iPads’ accessibility options will play a critical role, and that current apps such as Lumosity that help us geezers stay mentally sharp will also be a model.

According to Mobile Health News, the partnership will offer some pretty robust services from the get-go:

“If seniors or their caregivers choose, they can take advantage of one of Japan Post Groups’ post office services, called Watch Over where, for a fee, the mail carriers will check in on elderly customers and then provide the elderly person’s family with an update. 

“In the second half of this year, customers can upgrade the service to include iPad monitoring as well.After Japan Post Group pilots the iPads and software with 1,000 seniors for six months, the company will expand the service in stages.”

Lest we forget, Japan is THE harbinger of what lies ahead for all nations as their populations age. 20% of the population was already over 65 in 2006,  38% will be in 2055.  As I’ve said before in speeches, the current status quo in aging is simply unsustainable: we must find ways for seniors to remain healthy and cut the governmental costs of caring for them as they grow as a percentage of the population.  As Japan Post CEO Taizo Nishimuro (who looks as if he’s a candidate for the new services — y0u go, guy!) said, the issue is “most acute in Japan — we need real solutions.”

IBM CEO Ginni Rometty said her company will take on a 3-part mission:

“First, they’ll be working on ‘quality of life apps,’ both by building some themselves and by integrating others, all of which will be aimed at accessibility first. The key target will be iOS, since it’s a mobile-first strategy in keeping with our changed computing habits. Second, they’re working on developing additional accessibility features not yet available, and third they’re helping Japan Post with the service layer required to deliver this to the elderly.”

Sweet! — and it reminds me of the other recently announced IBM/Apple announcement, in that case with J & J, to build a robust support structure for Apple’s new open-source ResearchKit and HealthKit platform to democratize medical research.  The IoT ain’t nothin’ without collaboration, after all.

Cook, according to TechCrunch, put the initiative in a global context (not unlike his environmental initiatives, where, IMHO, he’s become THE leading corporate change agent regarding global warming):

“Tim Cook called the initiative ‘groundbreaking,’ saying that it is ‘not only important for Japan, but [also] has global implications. Together, the three of us and all the teams that work so diligently behind us will dramatically improve the lives of millions of people.’

“…. The Apple CEO talked about how the company aims to ‘help people that are marginalized in some way, and empower them to do the things everyone else can do.” He cited a UC Irvine study which details how remote monitoring and connection with loved ones via iPad help instill a sense of confidence and independence in seniors. He added that he believes what the companies are doing in Japan is also scalable around the world.”

It will be interesting to see exactly how the partnership addresses the challenge of creating those senior-friendly “quality of life” apps: as someone who’s on the front-lines of explaining even Apple’s intuitive devices to older customers, I can tell you that many seniors begin are really frightened by these technologies, and it will take a combination of great apps and calm, patient hand-holding to put them at ease.

As I enter my 7th decade, I’m pumped!

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Apple ResearchKit will launch medical research paradigm shift to crowd-sourcing

Posted on 11th March 2015 in aging, collaboration, data, Essential Truths, health, Internet of Things, m-health, open data, paradigm shift, privacy, Quantified Self, security, seniors, SmartAging

Amidst the hoopla about the new MacBook and much-anticipated Apple Watch, Apple snuck something into Monday’s event that blew me away (obligatory disclaimer: I work part-time at The Apple Store, but the opinions expressed here are mine).

My Heart Counts app

Four years after I proselytized about the virtues of democratizing data in my Data Dynamite: how liberating data will transform our world book (BTW: pardon the hubris, but I still think it’s the best thing out there about the attitudinal shift needed to capitalize on sharing data), I was so excited to learn about the new ResearchKit.

Tag line? “Now everybody can do their part to advance medical research.”

The other new announcements might improve your quality of life. This one might save it!

As Senior VP of Operations Jeff Williams said in announcing the kit,  the process of medical research ” ..hasn’t changed in decades.” That’s not really true: as I wrote in my book, the Quantified Self movement has been sharing data for several years, as well as groups such as CureTogether and PatientsLikeMe. However, what is definitely true is that no one has harnessed the incredible power of the smartphone for this common goal until now, and that’s really incredible. It’s a great example of my IoT Essential Truth of asking “who else could use this data?”

A range of factors cast a pall over traditional medical research.

Researchers have had to cast a broad net even to get 50-100 volunteers for a clinical trial (and may have to pay them, to boot, placing the results validity when applied to the general population in doubt).  The data has often been subjective (in the example Williams mentioned, Parkinson’s patients are classified by a doctor simply on the basis of walking a few feet). Also, communication about the project has been almost exclusively one way, from the researcher to the patient, and limited, at best.

What if, instead, you just had to turn on your phone and open a simple app to participate? As the website says, “Each one [smartphone] is equipped with powerful processors and advanced sensors that can track movement, take measurements, and record information — functions that are perfect for medical studies.” Suddenly research can be worldwide, and involve millions of diverse participants, increasing the data’s amount and validity (There’s a crowdsourcing research precedent: lot of us have been participating in scientific crowdsourcing for almost 20 years, by installing the SETI@Home software that runs in the background on our computers, analyzing data from deep space to see if ET is trying to check in)!

Polymath/medical data guru John Halamka, MD wrote me that:

“Enabling patients to donate data for clinical research will accelerate the ‘learning healthcare system’ envisioned by the Institute of Medicine.   I look forward to testing out Research Kit myself!”

The new apps developed using ResearchKit harvest information from the Health app that Apple introduced as part of iOS8. According to Apple:

“When granted permission by the user, apps can access data from the Health app such as weight, blood pressure, glucose levels and asthma inhaler use, which are measured by third-party devices and apps…. ResearchKit can also request from a user, access to the accelerometer, microphone, gyroscope and GPS sensors in iPhone to gain insight into a patient’s gait, motor impairment, fitness, speech and memory.

Apple announced that it has already collaborated with some of the world’s most prestigious medical institutions, including Mass General, Dana-Farber, Stanford Medical, Cornell and many others, to develop apps using ResearchKit. The first five apps target asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.  My favorite, because it affects the largest number of people, is the My Heart Counts one. It uses the iPhone’s built-in motion sensors to track participants’ activity, collecting data during a 6-minute walk test from those who are able to walk that long. If participants also have a wearable activity device connecting with the Health app (aside: still don’t know why my Jawbone UP data doesn’t flow to the Health app, even though I made the link) , they are encouraged to use that as well. Participants will also enter data about their heart disease risk factors and their lab tests readings to get feedback on their chances of developing heart disease and their “heart age.” Imagine the treasure trove of cardiac data it will yield!

 A critical aspect of why I think ResearchKit will be have a significant impact is that Apple decided t0 make it open source, so that anyone can tinker with the code and improve it (aside: has Apple EVER made ANYTHING open source? Doubt it! That alone is noteworthy).  Also, it’s important to note, in light of the extreme sensitivity of any personal health data, that Apple guarantees that it will not have access to any of the personal data.

Because of my preoccupation with “Smart Aging,” I’m really interested in whether any researchers will specifically target seniors with ResearchKit apps. I’ll be watching carefully when the Apple Watch comes out April 24th to see if seniors buy them (not terribly optimistic, I must admit, because of both the cost and the large number of seniors I help at The Apple Store who are befuddled by even Apple’s user-friendly technology) because the watch is a familiar form factor for them (I haven’t worn a watch since I got my first cell phone, and most young people I know have never had one) and might be willing to use them to participate in these projects.

N0w, if you’ll excuse me, I just downloaded the My Heart Counts app, and must find out my “heart age!”

 

Doh!  Just after I posted this, I saw a really important post on Ars Technica pointing out that this brave new world of medical research won’t go anywhere unless the FDA approves:

“As much as Silicon Valley likes to think of itself as a force for good, disrupting this and pivoting that, it sometimes forgets that there’s a wider world out there. And when it comes to using devices in the practice of medicine, that world contains three very important letters: FDA. That’s right, the US Food and Drug Administration, which Congress has empowered to regulate the marketing and research uses of medical devices.

“Oddly, not once in any of the announcement of ResearchKit did we see mention of premarket approval, 510k submission, or even investigational device exemptions. Which is odd, because several of the uses touted in the announcement aren’t going to be possible without getting the FDA to say yes.”

I remember reading that Apple had reached out to the FDA during development of the Apple Watch, so I’m sure none of this comes as a surprise to them, and any medical researcher worth his or her salt is also aware of that factor. However, the FDA is definitely going to have a role in this issue going forward, and that’s as it should be — as I’ve said before, with any aspect of the IoT, privacy and security is Job One.

 

 

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Apple Watch: killer app for IoT and lynchpin for “smart aging”

Posted on 9th September 2014 in aging, health, home automation, Internet of Things, m-health, marketing, Quantified Self, seniors, smart home, SmartAging, wearables

Wow: glad I put up with all of the tech problems during the Apple product launch today: the Apple Watch was worth it! It really seems as if it will be the killer device/app for the Internet of Things consumer market, and I think it may also be the lynchpin for my vision of “smart aging,” which would link both wearable health devices and smart home devices.

The elegant, versatile displays (it remains to be seen how easy it will be for klutzes like me to use the Digital Crown and some of the other navigation tools) plus the previously announced Health and Home Apps that are part of iOS 8 could really be the glue that brings together Quantified Self and smart home devices, making “smart aging” possible.

Activity AppIt will take some time to learn all about the watch and to see what apps the “Watch Kit” spawns, but here are some immediate reactions:

  • sorry, but I think it could kill the Lechal haptic shoes before they get off the ground: why have to pay extra for shoes that will vibrate to tell you where to go when your watch can do the same thing with its “Taptic Engine”?
  • I think I’ll also ditch my Jawbone UP, as much as I love it, for the Apple Watch: the video on how the Activity and Workout apps will work makes it look incredibly simple to view your fitness data instantly, vs. having to open an app on your phone.
  • (Just dreaming here): if they can pull off that neat “Milanese Loop” band on one of the versions that clamps to itself, what about not just a heart beat monitor, but a band that converts into a blood-pressure cuff? Guess that wouldn’t be accurate on the wrist, anyway, huh?
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Wearables/fitness apps & devices market heats up with Google Fit pending launch

Posted on 8th August 2014 in aging, health, Internet of Things, m-health, marketing, open data, privacy, security, seniors, SmartAging, wearables

Google appears set to give Apple’s pending Health app a run for its money with the forthcoming launch of the Google Fit tools. The competition should really benefit consumers and health care (Google has already released the developer’s kit). In announcing the kit, Google said the new tools will provide:

“… a single set of APIs for apps and device manufacturers to store and access activity data from fitness apps and sensors on Android and other devices (like wearables, heart rate monitors or connected scales). This means that with the user’s permission, you can get access to the user’s fitness history — enabling you to provide more interesting features in your app like personalized coaching, better insights, fitness recommendations and more.”

The releases only cover local storage of data, with cloud storage to follow.  As Forbes notes, that’s where the competition with Apple will be fierce:

“Google Fit will integrate with a number of solutions from Google. Your Android powered smartphone or tablet is the obvious first point of contact, but you should also consider Google Fit’s potential integration with Google Glass and the Android Wear smartwatch program. All of these devices can use their sensor suite to gather and relay health data.”

As with Apple Health, Google wants developers and device manufacturers to settle on its standard as the hub for collection and integration of health and fitness data, while it may not be in the individual company’s best interests to commit to a single proprietary standard. As Forbes‘ Ewan Spence predicted, it’s unlikely that any end users are going to change platforms for their devices just because of new health apps and devices.

I guess it would be inappropriate to refer to any potential “killer apps” that could sway anyone in this category, eh?

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Apple iWatch: could they really make wearables acceptable to mass market?

Posted on 21st June 2014 in aging, design, health, Internet of Things, m-health, marketing, Quantified Self, seniors, SmartAging, wearables

The WSJ had a piece this week speculating on the rumored Apple iWatch (Disclaimer: I work part-time in an Apple Store. In that capacity I don’t know anything you don’t know — including whether the iWatch will actually ever happen! My sources for this blog are limited to publicly-available ones.).

The Journal notes that none of the smart watches released so far have had major penetration, and, as a further cautionary note, I’d point out that most people who start using a Jawb0ne UP, Nike FuelBand, etc. stop using them in several months (HELP: I recently read the data on that claim, but I can’t find the citation. Can you help me find it???).

HOWEVER, as I speculated recently in my posts on Apple’s soon-to-be-released HealthKit and HomeKit, the company has shown time-and-time-again over the past 15 years that it knows how to create disruptive devices (even though Clayton Christensen was skeptical, LOL!) and create huge new markets that make tech devices mainstream.

Given my new-found pre-occupation with “Smart Aging” through a combination of Quantified Self and smart home devices, I really like the idea of a smart watch for seniors. I haven’t worn a watch since I got my first Palm Pilot (wow: remember when they were cutting edge??), but seniors do, and I suspect that if they could get immediate feedback on their vital signs from something that was not only functional but fashionable and didn’t require any technical savvy, they wouldn’t feel stigmatized by wearing the watch, a critical factor in its widespread acceptance.

Let’s see what happens!

 

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Sweet! The Internet of Things at Friendly Fenway! Let’s Play Two!

Posted on 4th April 2014 in Internet of Things, marketing, mobile, retail

There’s only one thing I love more than the Internet of Things, and that’s the World Champion Boston Red Sox — the personification of Boston Strong. Last year’s championship meant more here than the two most recent ones, because it went a long way toward healing the terrible pain we collectively felt in the Hub of the Universe after the horrible Marathon Day bombings.

— source: The Boston Globe

So what could be sweeter than to blog about the new MLB mobile app debuting at Friendly Fenway today as part of Opening Day! Overall, 20 0f the 30 MLB clubs will use it this year.

The app’s enabled by Apple’s iBeacon technology, and the presence of iPhone users who have Bluetooth turned on will be detected by the iBeacon sensors, just as at the Apple Store and a growing number of retailers, such as Macy’s.  According to the Boston Globe, not all features will be available immediately, but eventually:

“Patrons can use it to plan a full day at Fenway, from viewing the Sox’s schedule to purchasing electronics tickets that scan at the entry gates — even to plot the best route to the park. Once inside, iPhone users with Bluetooth enabled can “check in” and be detected by iBeacon sensors to receive special offers from the team. If David Ortiz blasts a home run, for instance, the Sox could instantly disseminate coupons for Big Papi T-shirts.”

According to Sox’ COO Sam Kennedy, the app will help the teams compete with the allure of in-home technology:

““Our huge competitor is the advent of incredible HD technology, so we have to make sure the experience at Fenway is better than the experience at home … Obviously, we’re biased — we don’t think there’s any substitute for coming to Fenway Park — but that is what we’re competing with. You have the time commitment and the cost, so we need to make sure that when you’re coming you’re getting a great, fully integrated experience.”

Last year one of my sons and I had the incredible experience of sitting in row two behind the backstop (thank you Ron & Lisa!), and in my mind nothing can compete with a day or night at the “lyrical little bandbox of a ballpark,” as Updike famously wrote. But for those with less of a passion or who don’t have such an historic ball yard to to visit, the app can make a competitive difference.

And now, as Mr. Cubs, Ernie Banks, would say, “It’s a great day for a ball game. Let’s play two”!

 

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