Experts call for action on biased digital health devices, Vinyl back in the basket!

Experts are calling for action on medical devices that are prone to unfair biases, including blood oxygen monitors and certain artificial intelligence (AI) enabled tools, to prevent harm to ethnic minorities and women. An Independent Review of Equity in Medical Devices looked at the extent and impact of ethnic and other unfair biases in the performance of equipment commonly used in the NHS…The panel found evidence that pulse oximeters (blood oxygen monitors) can overestimate the amount of oxygen in the blood of people with darker skin tones. The Independent 

Bitcoin has reached a new record price of more than $70,000, as the UK financial regulator said it would allow the trading of cryptocurrency-backed securities. The cryptocurrency hit a fresh high of $72,398 on Monday having last week overtaken its previous November 2021 high of nearly $69,000. The latest price move came as the UK financial regulator said on Monday it would “not object” to investment exchanges creating a UK-listed market segment for cryptoasset-backed exchange-traded notes [cETNs]. Guardian 

Vinyl records are back in Britain’s inflation basket for the first time in 32 years amid a surge in demand for wax from Generation Z. Rising sales mean that records are being included in a cross-section of goods tracked by official statisticians for the first time since 1992 – when Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You, Snap!’s Rhythm Is A Dancer and Stay by Shakespears Sister were all number ones. The list of 744 items is used to calculate how inflation is changing.  Telegraph 

Reddit, one of the most popular websites in the world, is hoping for a valuation of up to $6.4bn (£5bn) when its shares go public next week. The social media company, which has never made a profit, will float shares on the New York Stock Exchange. A filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) revealed that Reddit is hoping to sell 22 million shares for between $31 and $34 each. However, many users worry the move will fundamentally change the website. BBC 

The next phone we’re expecting from Google is the Google Pixel 8a, and while there’s been no official word in regards to the upcoming mid-ranger, we may have the next best thing, from the Android bug tracker that’s publicly available online. On a thread referring to battery stats (via 9to5Google), a Google software engineer says the feature will return for the Pixel 8a phone. It’s not the grandest phone launch we’ve ever seen, but we’ll take it as a sure sign that the successor to the Google Pixel 7a is on the way. Tech Radar 

Used EV prices continue to sink as car prices keep dropping overall. As a harbinger of used car prices, the U.S. new-vehicle average transaction price in January was $47,401, down 2.6% from December 2023 and down 3.5% compared to January 2023, according to Kelley Blue Book. It’s more dramatic for new electric vehicle prices. The average price paid for a new electric vehicle in January 2024 was $55,353, tumbling 10.8% year over year, KBB said. Forbes