I always love giving you a scoop. “Hear’s one.”

I know, I know. It’s “here’s one.” I just wanted to be cute when I clued you in on the fact that a soon-to-be released, smartphone app, will allow you to diagnose ear infections.

This is great news for parents who have children plagued by ear infections. The app uses the phone’s microphone, its speaker and a small paper cone.

According to Engadget, “The app sends short, sound pulses through a funnel and into the ear canal. It then measures the echo of that sound, and an algorithm uses the reading to predict if there’s fluid behind the eardrum, one of the common symptoms of infection.”

The app is waiting for FDA approval. Researchers at the University of Washington and the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, said the app was correct about 85 percent of the time when they checked the ears of 50 children.

Let’s hope that the new app helps parents, and grandparents, make an official diagnose. No one likes to see a child in pain. The quicker ear infections can be treated, the better.

Click below for a more complete story.

https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/15/smartphone-app-diagnoses-ear-infections/