Walking along the road with anonymous users in similar attributes.

Recently, the ubiquitousness of smartphones and tablet computers have changed the style of people's daily life. With this tendency, location based service (LBS) has become one of the prosperous types of service along with the wireless and positioning technology development. However, as the LBS server needs precise location information about the user to provide service result, the procedure of LBS may reveal location privacy, especially when a user is utilizing continuous query along the road. In continuous query, attributes of the user are released inadvertently with per-query, and the information can be collected by an adversary as background knowledge to correlate the location trajectory and infer the personal privacy. Although, a user can employ a central server (CS) to provide privacy preservation for his location, the trustfulness of CS still is without testified and it is usually considered as an un-trusted entity. Thus, in this paper, the trustfulness of CS is verified by a game tree, and then with the result we propose a hash based attribute anonymous scheme (short for HBAA) to obfuscate the attributes released in each query along the road. With the help of HBAA, the CS has no opportunity to get any information about the user who sends his query for generalization service. Furthermore, as the set of attributes is transmitted into a fixed length of hash value, the processing time that spent in attribute generalization is stripped down and the performance of executive efficiency is improved. At last, security analysis and simulation experiment are proposed, and then results of security proving as well as simulation experiments further reflect the superiority of our proposed scheme.

Ethical and regulatory challenges of research using pervasive sensing and other emerging technologies: IRB perspectives.

Vast quantities of personal health information and private identifiable information are being created through mobile apps, wearable sensors, and social networks. While new strategies and tools for obtaining health data have expanded researchers' abilities to design and test personalized and adaptive health interventions, the deployment of pervasive sensing and computational techniques to gather research data is raising ethical challenges for Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) charged with protecting research participants. To explore experiences with, and perceptions about, technology-enabled research, and identify solutions for promoting responsible conduct of this research we conducted focus groups with human research protection program and IRB affiliates. Our findings outline the need for increased collaboration across stakeholders in terms of: (1) shared and dynamic resources that improve awareness of technologies and decrease potential threats to participant privacy and data confidentiality, and (2) development of appropriate and dynamic standards through collaboration with stakeholders in the research ethics community.

Improvements to Benchmarks and Related Requirements Governing Hearing Aid-Compatible Mobile Handsets. Final rule.

The Commission adopts this Report and Order to implement a historic consensus proposal for ensuring that people with hearing loss have full access to innovative handsets.

Hearing Aid-Compatible Mobile Handsets. Final rule.

In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) modernizes its wireless hearing aid compatibility rules. The Commission adopts these rules to ensure that people with hearing loss have full access to innovative handsets and technologies.

Cybersecurity Regulation of Wireless Devices for Performance and Assurance in the Age of "Medjacking".

We are rapidly reaching a point where, as connected devices for monitoring and treating diabetes and other diseases become more pervasive and powerful, the likelihood of malicious medical device hacking (known as "medjacking") is growing. While government could increase regulation, we have all been witness in recent times to the limitations and issues surrounding exclusive reliance on government. Herein we outline a preliminary framework for establishing security for wireless health devices based on international common criteria. Creation of an independent medical device cybersecurity body is suggested. The goal is to allow for continued growth and innovation while simultaneously fostering security, public trust, and confidence.

Emergency providers see big potential for Google Glass.

Emergency providers are among the first in health care to experiment with Google Glass, a computer that is worn like a traditional set of glasses, enabling clinicians to pull up critical information from a patient's electronic medical record (EMR) or call for assistance without looking away from the patient. Special applications of the device can also be used to facilitate telemedicine consults with specialists while patients are still in the ED. According to early users, protecting patient privacy has not been a problem in early applications of the device. However, state-level laws remain a barrier to large-scale implementation of the technology in some regions. Emergency providers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA, see Google Glass as another platform for their ED information system. The approach is being used to facilitate hands-free communications and to expedite workflow. At Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, RI, emergency providers are testing a telemedicine application for Glass that enables providers to connect patients with off-site dermatologists while they are still in the ED, eliminating the need for additional specialty appointments. Early users believe that Glass and similar innovations will eventually play a strong role in preventing readmissions by providing remote care to patients--especially in the first few days following discharge from the hospital or ED.

Final priority; National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research--Disability and Rehabilitation Research Projects and Centers Program--Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers. Final priority.

The Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services announces a priority for a Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Universal Interfaces and Information Technology Access under the Disability and Rehabilitation Research Projects and Centers Program administered by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR). The Assistant Secretary may use this priority for a competition in fiscal year (FY) 2013 and later years. We take this action to focus research attention on areas of national need. We intend to use this priority to improve outcomes for individuals with disabilities.

Medical Area Body Network. Final rule.

This document expands the Commission's Medical Device Radiocommunications Service (MedRadio) rules to permit the development of new Medical Body Area Network (MBAN) devices in the 2360-2400 MHz band. The MBAN technology will provide a flexible platform for the wireless networking of multiple body transmitters used for the purpose of measuring and recording physiological parameters and other patient information or for performing diagnostic or therapeutic functions, primarily in health care facilities. This platform will enhance patient safety, care and comfort by reducing the need to physically connect sensors to essential monitoring equipment by cables and wires. This decision is the latest in a series of actions to expand the spectrum available for wireless medical use. The Commission finds that the risk of increased interference is minimal and is greatly outweighed by the benefits of the MBAN rules.

Unplugged: FCC's approval of wireless spectrum for healthcare would unchain patients from hospital beds, transforming care.

Patient monitoring is about to enter a whole new era, with the FCC's plan to allocate part of the wireless spectrum for healthcare. "I expect it will eventually lead to technologies not just for healthcare facilities, but also for in-home use," says FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, calling it a "real game-changer."

Security issues in healthcare applications using wireless medical sensor networks: a survey.

Healthcare applications are considered as promising fields for wireless sensor networks, where patients can be monitored using wireless medical sensor networks (WMSNs). Current WMSN healthcare research trends focus on patient reliable communication, patient mobility, and energy-efficient routing, as a few examples. However, deploying new technologies in healthcare applications without considering security makes patient privacy vulnerable. Moreover, the physiological data of an individual are highly sensitive. Therefore, security is a paramount requirement of healthcare applications, especially in the case of patient privacy, if the patient has an embarrassing disease. This paper discusses the security and privacy issues in healthcare application using WMSNs. We highlight some popular healthcare projects using wireless medical sensor networks, and discuss their security. Our aim is to instigate discussion on these critical issues since the success of healthcare application depends directly on patient security and privacy, for ethic as well as legal reasons. In addition, we discuss the issues with existing security mechanisms, and sketch out the important security requirements for such applications. In addition, the paper reviews existing schemes that have been recently proposed to provide security solutions in wireless healthcare scenarios. Finally, the paper ends up with a summary of open security research issues that need to be explored for future healthcare applications using WMSNs.

Medical devices; ear, nose, and throat devices; classification of the wireless air-conduction hearing aid. Final rule.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is classifying the wireless air-conduction hearing aid into class II (special controls). The Agency is classifying the device into class II (special controls) in order to provide a reasonable assurance of safety and effectiveness of the device.

Tragedy of the commons revisited: the high tech-high risk wireless world.

In 1968, Garrett Hardin, an eminent population ecologist from Santa Barbara, CA published an article in Science titled 'Tragedy of the Commons' that was immediately hailed as a landmark piece of thinking. This paper reshaped prevailing views about our place in the ecological network of the planet and was pivotal in defining how pursuit of our individual actions to maximize self-interest will, across populations all doing the same thing, result in diminished and overused environmental resources. Before sustainability was even a buzzword, Hardin created a way of seeing the world that emphasized how individuals must learn to recognize and to act with more in mind than squeezing one more cow onto the common pasture. He gave us new ways to think about how we might better manage our resources in the face of new technologies. He was not a believer in the technological fix. Those lessons are highly relevant today to the unchecked proliferation of wireless radiofrequency signals, thought by many to cause serious health consequences.