Hidden
Treasure

Discovered in Oakland County

Elegant estate jewelry and

beautiful one-of-a-kind pieces can

be yours for less than you would imagine

COMPANION
Many worried parents of college-aged
young women ask them to “text me
when you get home” before they walk
back to their dorm room or off-cam-
pus apartment alone at night. Parents
remain anxious until they receive
that text message alerting them their
daughter made the dark trek from the
library back home safely. Certainly
there must be a solution to curb par-
ents’ trepidation.
A new free mobile app called
Companion, created by a group of five
students at the University of Michigan,
seeks to do just that. Companion
launched this past fall, and the
response has been remarkable, with
more than half a million new users of
the Android and iOS versions.
The app allows loved ones to track
the user’s journey. The application
isn’t just for college coeds either. If
you’re walking through a dark park-
ing garage, through downtown late at
night or in a dangerous area, you can
give permission to a friend or relative
to track you.
The companion receives an SMS text
request to be a companion with a link.
This pulls up a map and you can track
the voyage through GPS. The app uses
the phone’s built-in sensors to detect
changes in the user’s movement —
sudden running or if the headphones
come out of the phone’s jack. That sud-
den change will cause the app to ask
for confirmation that the user is OK. If
she doesn’t respond within 15 seconds,
the app notifies the companion who
has the option to call the police.
At the same time, the app will also
go into alert mode for the walker, emit-
ting siren-like noises and displaying a
button to also call the police.
Nathan Pilcowitz, one of the app’s
co-founders, said his development
team eventually will add more features,
including touch-ID technology so that
only the phone’s owner can hit the “I’m
OK” button preventing a third-party
from falsely hitting the button.

AUTISM AND BEYOND
What if a mobile app could screen for
symptoms of autism by reading chil-
dren’s facial expressions for emotional
cues? Autism and Beyond, devel-
oped by a team of scientists at Duke
University and its medical center, is
such a tool. The app offers a series of
questionnaires to children and has
them watch short videos designed
to make them smile, laugh and be
surprised. Parents use a smartphone’s
user-facing “selfie” camera to record
their children’s facial movements for
evaluation by doctors, researchers and
software.
A complex mathematical algorithm
automatically maps key landmarks on
children’s faces and assesses emotional
responses based on movements of
facial muscles. This inexpensive form
of diagnosis isn’t ready to take the
place of more in-depth identification
of autism, but it’s moving in that direc-
tion.
Lack of emotion and social shar-
ing are possible characteristics of
childhood autism so the app tracks
the child’s response to stimuli, includ-
ing funny videos. Future uses of this
important technology include diagnos-
ing the conditions suffered by veter-
ans, including post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD) and depression.
Our world isn’t just getting more
connected through technology; it is
improving our lives. While there are
innovative new technologies focused
on keeping us entertained, what is
most impactful are the technologies
focused on improving our lives and
keeping us healthy. I’m eager to see
how these technologies advance this
year and beyond. Undoubtedly, the
best is yet to come.

&

R
Estate and Fine Jewelry
R

Since 1956

at David Wachler & Sons

112 South Old Woodward Ave, Birmingham, MI

248.385.0100

Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday 10am-5:30pm Thursday, 10am-7:30pm
Saturday, 10am-5pm Closed Sunday and Monday

*

Rabbi Jason Miller is a local educator, entrepre-
neur and blogger. He is the president of Access
Computer Technology and the tech expert for the
Detroit Jewish News. Follow him on Twitter at @
rabbijason.

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January 14 • 2016

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