Will 2015 be a breakout year for digital health testing? It’s still a little early to tell, but the news this week was good for advocates of mHealth and personalized medicine.

23andMe received FDA approval to provide screening for Bloom Syndrome, a rare gene disorder indicative of a predisposition to develop cancer. At Columbia University, research engineers developed an inexpensive HIV test that can be conducted using a smartphone. And, “tricorder” mHealth darling Scanadu entered the testing phase for its Scanaflo iPhone-ready urinalysis strip.

In this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss these latest achievements in digital health diagnostics and explore the future of mHealth.

In this episode of The Digital Life we discuss recent news in emerging technology.

Big fashion houses and experimental designers alike are flocking to smart clothing as the latest expression of wearable technology. Sensors combined with online connectivity, are enabling information flow directly from our clothing — whether it’s measuring heart rate for sport, flexibility for rehabilitation, or Tweets for fun.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has proposed new regulations for commercial drone flights.

And Apple might be taking on Tesla and General Motors by venturing into one of the most complex product areas: the electric car.

Join us as we dig into these topics from a UX and design perspective.

Across the United States, from New York to Los Angeles to Boston, there are a variety of new initiatives to develop Smart City services, using sensor technology and the Internet of Things to improve the quality of urban living.

Examples of these initiatives range from well-coordinated transportation services using big data to reduce traffic congestion and save commuters time and fuel, to public safety and security services controlling police dispatch, municipal repairs, and even snow removal.

In this episode of The Digital Life, we discuss the long-term implications of designing Smart Cities, and the potential pitfalls of such wide-ranging projects, as the digital infrastructure of our environment grows.

The Super Bowl last weekend was a testimony to the integration of technology at the highest level of sporting competition — from the ultra high-definition cameras for broadcast clarity, to the tablet displays for reviewing plays with coaching staff, to the deluge of viewing audience commentary via social media.

In tribute to that exciting finale to the 2014 football season, in this episode of The Digital Life we discuss the training, techniques, and technology for professional football and how the advances the NFL is making toward a complete view of health metrics and performance in real time is inspired by the quantified self movement.

The NFL has taken the lead in quantifying their athletes play, including sensor technology in helmets for measuring impact, electronic health records (EHRs) on the sidelines for reviewing player history, and wearables in the uniforms to track position on the field. What does this technology integration mean for the future of health?