Apple and Google held a joint press conference on Monday to explain their recently-announced collaboration on a phone-based approach to tracking—and then interrupting—the spread of coronavirus.
The companies are making changes to their respective mobile operating systems to allow iOS and Android devices to use Bluetooth to detect and record when they come within 10-15 feet of any other iOS or Android device (provided its owner has opted in). If you use the app and anyone you’ve encountered later tests positive for coronavirus, your phone will alert you of that fact.
By implementing this technology, the companies are digitizing an old, arduous epidemiological process called “contact tracing,” in which health workers trace the transmission of the disease from patient zero to any person with whom they may have come in contact. The lines begin spreading out like a tree from the original carrier as days pass and new contacts occur. The goal is to catch up with the spread of the…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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