The last few hours has seen an increase in interest in my iphone app
iStethoscope Pro. UCL has recognised the app in The Provost's Newsletter 14 September 2009, I include the text
below:
A new application has been released by Dr Peter Bentley of the
Digital Biology Group in UCL Computer Science (and author of The Undercover Scientist, recently
published in paperback). The "iStethoscope" turns the phone into a very effective digital
stethoscope by amplifying and filtering the audio in real time (and analysing it with a spectrogram
display). The free version was available for 10 months and had several million downloads
worldwide. This led to several cardiologists getting in touch, and to international collaborations
and the release of a professional version of the application. There is now a medical trial
underway. Users are able to email their heart audio direct to a laboratory where the data are
analysed and used to build an automatic diagnosis system. Other medical applications are under
development.
One of my old students Udi Schlessinger gave me a mention in his blog.
My cardiologist collaborator Glenn Nordehn tells me we are gathering a nice collection of
heart sounds from the app which he will make available as an online resource soon. He also said:
I showed iStethoscope Pro to a group of students today. When I
walked around the room with the spectrogram . . . they were amazed.
And finally Apple finally approved the latest update 1.02 which includes those two often-
requested features: a button to switch to the graph mode (touch the stethoscope image) and the
ability to ignore the last 1 second of audio.
As usual if you have comments or queries about the app, please go to the support page.
