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a) Photos are a fundamental form of data, and better infrastructure for managing them helps everyone. b) We did fund a startup for managing medical images: Cla

by pg 13y ago

a) Photos are a fundamental form of data, and better infrastructure for managing them helps everyone. b) We did fund a startup for managing medical images: Clariso, in the last batch. You don't hear as much about b2b startups as consumer ones, because unless you're e.g. a radiologist, they're not trying to reach you. Which means if you try to estimate the number of consumer focused startups based on which ones you happen to hear about, you'll overestimate.

angersock 13y ago
Fair enough. My comment was more rooted in seeing a rough area of application for what I presume their tech and backend must be capable of, and then thinking about where else it could be put to use outside of the consumer market. How'd the Clariso folks end up? Still around, I hope? How much interest do you gauge for these sorts of things (better tech in medical, which is admittedly a whole can of worms)?
- abbasmehdi 13y ago
  Yes, Clariso is still very much around. In fact, I introduced their product to an organization that is used by large hospital chains to outsource radiology reports to, these guys have tens of full-time, in-house radiologists looking at hundreds of reports all day, every day. Their immediate reaction after checking out the product? Blown away! The best alternative costs them over $100k/year and it feels like Windows95. Their CTO could not believe such a solution was even possible. The CEO (a radiologist with >25 years of report-reading experience) said to me that this could be "revolutionary".
  - macspoofing 13y ago
    It "only" works in Chrome. That's a problem. // Limited in ie, firefox and mobile.
    - kibibu 13y ago
      If it saved your company > $100k a year, you'd probably rollout Chrome or at least ChromeFrame
      - spartango 13y ago
        While this trivializes the issue substantially, it is true that if you depend on chrome there are ways to roll out nice site-specific chromium apps that keep everyone happy.
sthommes 13y ago
pg is right- fundamental. angersock also touches on a higher level, fundamental need here: the ephemerality of human memories. Technology should be able to help and this is exactly the problem that Jan and his team at Loom are trying to solve. Our memories- of our grandparents, our parents, our loves, our children, our grandchildren- they should last forever, and not be ephemeral like clouds and the Cloud. Technology should help them endure like the cave paintings in Lascaux France. They were created by the earliest, most primitive human technology and remain to inspire awe in all of us. More than that, our memories- the visual stories of our lives- should be available on any device: any iPhone, any iPad, any Android. And even any TV, Windows or Glass- wherever we are, and wherever we go. Memories should be memorable and shareable with those we cherish most. An heirloom of us.
spartango 13y ago
I'm curious about what differentiates Clariso from other PACSs, as that space has been crowded and active for nearly 20 years (since radiology went digital). There are some big players in the PACS space that major medical institutions are pleased with, and there's considerable lock-in/inertia associated with these types of products. As someone working on a medical imaging product who decided that building a PACS was not a good starting point, I'm curious to see what others are doing to sell PACSs.
- rdl 13y ago
  Pretty much all current PACS suck, actually.
  - spartango 13y ago
    While this is true, getting institutions to adopt a new PACS is a non-trivial process. I'm curious as to what improvements Clariso bills as big enough to warrant adoption/switching.

by pg 13y ago

angersock 13y ago

Fair enough. My comment was more rooted in seeing a rough area of application for what I presume their tech and backend must be capable of, and then thinking about where else it could be put to use outside of the consumer market. How'd the Clariso folks end up? Still around, I hope? How much interest do you gauge for these sorts of things (better tech in medical, which is admittedly a whole can of worms)?

abbasmehdi 13y ago
Yes, Clariso is still very much around. In fact, I introduced their product to an organization that is used by large hospital chains to outsource radiology reports to, these guys have tens of full-time, in-house radiologists looking at hundreds of reports all day, every day. Their immediate reaction after checking out the product? Blown away! The best alternative costs them over $100k/year and it feels like Windows95. Their CTO could not believe such a solution was even possible. The CEO (a radiologist with >25 years of report-reading experience) said to me that this could be "revolutionary".
- macspoofing 13y ago
  It "only" works in Chrome. That's a problem. // Limited in ie, firefox and mobile.
  - kibibu 13y ago
    If it saved your company > $100k a year, you'd probably rollout Chrome or at least ChromeFrame
    - spartango 13y ago
      While this trivializes the issue substantially, it is true that if you depend on chrome there are ways to roll out nice site-specific chromium apps that keep everyone happy.

sthommes 13y ago

pg is right- fundamental. angersock also touches on a higher level, fundamental need here: the ephemerality of human memories. Technology should be able to help and this is exactly the problem that Jan and his team at Loom are trying to solve. Our memories- of our grandparents, our parents, our loves, our children, our grandchildren- they should last forever, and not be ephemeral like clouds and the Cloud. Technology should help them endure like the cave paintings in Lascaux France. They were created by the earliest, most primitive human technology and remain to inspire awe in all of us. More than that, our memories- the visual stories of our lives- should be available on any device: any iPhone, any iPad, any Android. And even any TV, Windows or Glass- wherever we are, and wherever we go. Memories should be memorable and shareable with those we cherish most. An heirloom of us.

spartango 13y ago

I'm curious about what differentiates Clariso from other PACSs, as that space has been crowded and active for nearly 20 years (since radiology went digital). There are some big players in the PACS space that major medical institutions are pleased with, and there's considerable lock-in/inertia associated with these types of products. As someone working on a medical imaging product who decided that building a PACS was not a good starting point, I'm curious to see what others are doing to sell PACSs.

rdl 13y ago
Pretty much all current PACS suck, actually.
- spartango 13y ago
  While this is true, getting institutions to adopt a new PACS is a non-trivial process. I'm curious as to what improvements Clariso bills as big enough to warrant adoption/switching.