What would you build if you could hack the human body with a REST API? | Hacker News Reader

What would you build if you could hack the human body with a REST API?

14 pointsolawiberg17 comments

We are building a platform for developers to create better health applications for the future. What would you build? http://humanapi.co

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What would I build with a human body data stream API? A real-time fertility / menstrual cycle monitor. Basal body temperature + hormone spikes monitored remotely, hooked up to some kind of a real-world notification system (push message to your phone? arduino-powered lights and klaxon? you choose!) that goes off when you're within 24 hours of ovulating. Depending on whether or not you're intending to get pregnant that month, this would either be your alert system to get busy or alternately your alert system not to get busy.

Add in a separate notification system 48 hours before the crimson tide is due to start, and maybe hook it up to another API that auto-purchases and delivers chocolate to your house -- or work a purchasing deal with one of the many "period box" delivery companies that have sprung up lately (see http://pregnancy.about.com/od/Menstrual-Cycle/tp/Box-Subscri...).

Of course, this API would only be usable for 50% of the population at best, and likely only for ages 12-45 within that 50%, but that's still a pretty big potential market. :-)

Japan actually has a couple of services kind of like that and has had for a while -- not that physically in-depth, of course. It would record a number of factors and guess when you would be ovulating and could either show it on a calendar or message you.

I'm not sure the answer is just in applications. I think the application can work in partnership with new or existing technology. If a chip can be inserted somewhere in the human body and monitor are heart rate and function, glucose levels, caloric increase/decrease(whether we need to refuel the body), check our white/red blood cell counts, monitor genetic mutations for cancer, know when a virus has entered the body, or some of the other ideas expressed below. I believe this is the future, an application that works in concert with another device not just an application. Although there can be a suite of apps created for general purpose, very similar to "Cardiio" which is truly a genius application and is very, I mean very accurate. But to answer your question as to what app I would build. I would create a neuro technology app that monitors all activity of the brain, to record and know what gives us pleasure, know what makes us angry, happy, sad. What triggers emotion in us.

Going a step further and assuming this API was not readonly, I would love to have an interface to control the filtering of the brain. We propably don't even know about much of the information available to our brain that just gets filtered out and we never notice it was there.

When doing interesting and fun things you could increase your attention for details by lowering the filter level for visual input, so you can remember it better later on.

Searching for your dog? Crank up your hearing.

Coworkers have to talk about private stuff again? Filter it away.

That would be really cool. Having an external realtime feedback loop that you can act upon would be great, then fine-tune that for different situations. I like it!

I think it depends on the extent of the API... I'd start with a monitoring program that logs all info sent or received and transmits a copy of that to various people at death, (family, coroner's office, law enforcement, my Doctor, donated to medical research institutions).

Morbid? Maybe, but it might help solve my death, and my data would also be available for research.

Something that tracks diet, bodily ph balance and associated health effects so we can get some real data about that. It currently is presented as rather woo. For starters, websites that list acid and alkaline foods do not even agree which foods are which.

This would be awesome for making diet management applications that didn't require manual user entry.

Automated data entry and feedback on weight loss and management would be great.

I would love a simple way to measure my Heart rate, I did measure my heart rate for a few weeks 24/7, Now i need to go in an look for patterns in it

try Cardiio in the app store for an iphone, not sure if they have it for android

San Fransisco? Please fix the spelling error, it should say San Francisco.

Yes

I am sorry, but shouldn't it be San Francisco. I think you have a spelling error.

Thanks :)

Can I just say wow this is awesome? Wow - this is awesome.

working in the backyard late...I can no longer see...it's too dark.

Eyesight.Pupil.Dialate(DilateByTimeofDayEnum.LateEvening);

How about using shorter-term data to build a lie detector, an attraction meter, a deeper A/B tester that shows how someone physiologically reacts to a logo/web page/ad.

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