For over 30 years, I have going to the Medical Imaging of Manhattan for a mammography and a sonogram. Every six months I get a sonogram, and once a year, I get a mammography. I take these precautionary measures because my mother had breast cancer.
Today, the founding doctor, Dr. Miriam Levy, told me that by my next visit, I will be examined by the new, three-dimensional mammograms that are “better at picking up invasive tumors.” Instead of looking at the several sides of the breast, the 3D technology, will allow inside views by slicing the picture.
Another explanation is that it takes multiple images of the breast from different angles. These images can be viewed separately or put together as a 3D reconstruction of the breast tissue. Sources say the 3D machines have a 40 per cent improvement rate in breast cancer detection.
As most women will attest, getting a breast exam is totally unnerving. The examination room is filled with nervous nellies. We are all sitting in our little gowns waiting for the results. It will be so nice to know that we have a better machine to keep us safe.
I just read this morning in the New York Times that Ray Lumpp died last Friday at 91 in Mineola, NY. He was a basketball star at New York University in the late 1940s, played for the Knicks in the early 1950s and was the much loved athletic director of the New York Athletic Club for nearly half a century.
He was also the guy who fired me for doing too good of a PR job for the NYAC. This is one of those times that I would love to turn back the clock and have a new shot at speaking my mind to Lumpp and the rest of his NYAC cronies who wanted to witness the firing of the gal they didn’t want to hire in the place. It was only Lumpp and one or two other NYAC executives who decided to hire HWH PR a few months earlier because they wanted to attract potential members in the 20s and 30s.
John McEnroe walked out
It all started when the New York Athletic Club (NYAC) honored John McEnroe as its 2005 Man of the Year. The McEnroe dinner was going to be my chance to show them just how well I can attract the press to one of their functions. HWH PR was the first outside PR agency they had ever used.
Hundreds of NYAC members attended the dinner held in the Raymond G. Lumpp Gymnasium. I actually filled two tables with sports and entertainment press. One of those who showed up was Lloyd Grove, the NY Daily News gossip writer.
Lloyd Grove called in his story to the city desk immediately.
All was going well until the friends of the honoree, who attended the dinner to pay tribute, gave long drawn out speeches that seem to never end. The audience had been pretty patient until someone yelled out “Is John here?” during Patrick McEnroe’s turn. He retorted, “Don’t you people have any manners?”
Things only got worse from there. The audience gave up and started talking amongst themselves. The exhausting speeches toward the end of the 90-minute presentation from McEnroe’s longtime broadcast partner Ted Robinson, and WFAN radio personality Chris “Mad Dog” Russo, couldn’t be heard.
When John McEnroe was finally called to the mic, he said, “I feel a bit off center about the reaction my brother and friends got up here on the dais. I had a speech. I’m not sure I’m even going to read it at this point.” With that, he motioned to the members of the dias and to the table of his family right below him. They all stood up and followed him out the door.
Lloyd Grove ran to their nearest phone booth (remember those)? The next morning, the NY Daily News ran the entire fiasco in detail. The board of directors were fuming. I was called in to a special emergency meeting and fired on the spot. I had been pretty friendly with Lumpp but that didn’t stop him from saying, “Girlie, you’re done.”
To this day I am sorry that I didn’t speak up. I should have told that executive team that they knew nothing about running an event and the tributes were a big bore.
They were the ones who should have been fired. RIP Ray. Sorry we didn’t work together longer.
Another company that garnered a lot of interest at CES was FlyKly, manufacturers of the FlyKly Smart Wheel. The FlyKly smart wheel turns ordinary bikes into pedal-assisted electric bikes.
The company raised its initial money on Kickstarter in December, 2014, and is now ready to ship. The FlyKly smart wheel comes in 20″, 26″, or 28″ sizes at 1,099. You can buy the wheel on the company’s website, http://www.flykly.com.
A companion app is free. The app monitors speed, distance traveled, motion, torque, and heat. It can also share information with other cyclists.
Niko Klansek, CEO of FlyKly, is very excited about transforming urban transportation. He believes he has made a very attractive alternative to using a car. It’s going to be very interesting to see how many units he sells per month and where those sales are generated.
The videos are fun to view. Don’t miss this innovation.
The banter between Nicole Kidman and Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show last week received over 22 million views on YouTube. I didn’t want you to miss out, so I posted it here. Kidman admitted that she was set up with Fallon many years ago, but he didn’t seem interested. We all experienced something like this, so enjoy.
Pogue’s Basics
Tech guru David Pogue reminds us in his book “Pogue Basics,” that we can complete each sentence on any smartphone by tapping the space key twice.
“This shortcut accomplishes three things: It creates a period, adds a space, and automatically capitalizes the next word you type. It saves you the trouble of finding the period.” The works on the iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone and on every BlackBerry ever made.
Disgraced
A bunch of us went to see the Broadway Show Disgraced tonight. It was profound. Go see it. After the play, we went for dessert directly across the street from the theater at Bond 45. When we exited the restaurant, the two leads of the play were standing outside. Here we are with Hari Dhillon and Gretchen Mol.
If you walk around CES enough, you will find innovative products that no one has ever seen or heard of before. This one is a gem.
The following product was created in Rome by Uriel Perugia. He is working two jobs to get this off the ground. He was at CES because he was looking for funding. I emailed him earlier today to see if he received any interest.
SmartQsine is a monitoring system that alerts you when your groceries need to be replaced. The patented system is a pad and a companion smartphone/tablet application. The first time you use the multiple pads, you need to place the items you want to monitored on them.
It then sets its current level. From that moment on, the pad is talking to your smartphone. It will exchange information about the quantity of product placed on it. The smartphone will give you alerts when it’s time to restock.
Watch the video above. Do you think this is s useful product?
The Internet was all abuzz about Jimmy Kimmel’s show the other night featuring Patrick Stewart. I just had to see what the big fuss was about. I watched the video and I’m still wondering “what the fuss is about?” While the situations are true, the skit was a bit hyped up.
Next case….
If you want to find out some hidden secrets about your iPhone iOS 8, click here
The topics include, your battery, using Siri hands-free, identify songs, scanning credit cards, and a different keyboard.
Next case
Josh Topolsky
Josh Topolsky, tech writer, will be on the Jimmy Fallon Tonight Show, Friday night, with the best from CES.
Next case
A Tutem
I was on an American Airlines flight to Las Vegas for CES 10 days ago. I was going to have a grueling week covering the largest trade show in the United States.
Then the unthinkable happened. The gal next to me coughed all the way from Miami to Dallas. She apologized, but I knew I was in big trouble.
Cough, cough. I will never leave home without a few Tutem Masks in my handbag or pocket. It’s now as important to me as my license and credit cards.
This video was viewed by over two million people. It’s almost too strange to believe. Music composer, Jarbos Agnelli of Brazil, saw a picture of birds sitting on electric wires in a local newspaper. He thought it would be totally awesome if he put notes exactly where the birds were located. This is the melody he created. Unbelievable!
Thank you Marsha Levine for bringing this to my attention.
Miguel Elias
My friend Miguel Elias died last week while I was at CES. He was in his mid 50’s. He learned a few weeks prior that he had stage four liver cancer. He declined faster than anyone could ever have imagined. His long-time partner, Joe Nass, has been hospitalized with a complete breakdown. Their dog Buddy suddenly died days after Miguel and Joe just couldn’t cope.
If it wasn’t for Facebook, texts, and emails, most of Miguel’s family and friends would not have been informed so quickly about his condition. His interior design clients live all over the United States (with a focus on Dallas and Minneapolis) and his family in Rio. Those closest to him immediately flew in to be at his side.
Miguel was a very special person. Not only was he very handsome and talented, he was a very good friend. Eliot and I met him when he was the boyfriend of one of our employees, Andrew Scott. Miguel took impeccable care of Andrew when he was drying of AIDS. He did the same thing for his next partner, Bob. There are few people on Earth who would devote their lives to take care of others as he did for these men.
Eliot and I witnessed Miguel at the lowest of low and then the highest of high. Miguel’s last partner Joe contracted cancer (nothing related to AIDS), so he spent two-plus years nursing him back to life. He basically gave up his career to be a devoted caregiver.
That was just a few years ago, Miguel was finally enjoying life, doing what he loved the most, making people’s homes absolutely spectacular. He just finished one major assignment on Central Park West. I am talking to the owners about showcasing one of his last masterpieces.
Eliot, Whitney and I were very close to Miguel. He and Joe even employed Whitney when they first opened their home accessories retail store in the Union Square district. Called XYZ, it was right across the way from ABC Carpet.
We will miss Miguel terribly and pray that Joe recovers quickly. None of this makes sense to those who love them both.
Digidame’s blog platform, WordPress, has been cranky for the last few days. Email blasts have not be distributed to you in the usual manner. We hope this one gets to you on time. I urge you to read the last two posts about XY Find It and Ozobot. All you have to do now is scroll down.
Now for today’s topic. I have mentioned David Pogue’s new book, “Pogue’s Basics,” a few times over the several months. It reveals tech secrets that we should all know.
For example, if you are in a hurry to charge your smart phone, Pogue said, “The fastest possible is to plug it into the wall, using the little prong adapter that came with it. That’ll charge it 30 minutes sooner than using your computer’s USB jack.” He also recommends putting your phone on Airplane Mode. “It will charge nearly twice as quickly. All the electricity is coming into the battery, but none is going out; the phone isn’t wasting power hunting for a signal, checking e- mail, and so on.”
Either buy his book, or wait for me to post all of the nifty tips he has for us. I plan to learn as many of them as possible and pass them along to you. Hang in there.
I’m always in panic mode. I’m one of those women who can’t find anything in my handbag. It doesn’t matter how big or small my bag is, I can’t find a thing.
I’m not unique. Most handbags are big black holes. You can put an item in, and one second later, you can’t find it. I have no scientific proof but items in handbags shift around pretty quickly. My things find their way to the bottom,instantaneously.
After I freak and pray to my higher power, I usually find what I’m looking for. I really want to avoid the panic attacks that I go through in the future. It takes so much energy out of me and is a big waste of time.
I think I found the solution at CES. It’s called XYFind It. It’s a Bluetooth LE powered tracking tag that you can attach to just about anything you don’t want to lose. The tag syncs with your smartphone. You can attach as many XY tags to your phone as you like.!XY is perfect for your keys, purse, tablet, luggage, etc.
XY explains on their site that “the average person spends 10 minutes a day trying to find lost things. That means that on average, you spend over 4 hours a month, 2 days each year, and 6 months of your life trying to find things you own. With XY, you can keep of track everything important to you, and take back that time.”
You can be sure that I spend much more time than the average person looking for things I think I lost. I cut and pasted information XY has on their site so you can completely understand how this works.
“The XY app listens to nearby Bluetooth LE signals. When the app finds a new tag, it checks our servers to see what information about the tag is available to you.
“Find-It: By activating Find-It mode, you can track any tag that is within range of your phone. The on-screen indicator will show you as you get closer to the tag, and will help you find your misplaced item. If the item is not within range, the app will show you where it was seen last.
“If you don’t want something to leave your side, you can activate Keep-It mode, and your phone will alert you if you move out of range of the tag.
“Lost-It: You can mark any tag as lost right from the app. Once it has been set as lost, XY will alert other users if they come across the item, or can just tell you where the item was just seen.”
Wow, that last feature is pretty amazing. I sometimes think I need an army to find my phone, my credit card and my eye glasses.
I got an XY at CES when I visited their booth. Now I am going to order more.
Image: Methodisthealth.org
DigiDame 