The European Commission (EC) has encouraged experts in the field of telemedicine to play an active role in the development of innovative technologies for chronic disease management. The TeleHealth 2007 conference (Brussels, Belgium, 11 December 2007) aims to identify barriers to broad telemedicine development and concrete actions for the European Union Institutions, Member States, Regions, Industries, User organisations and other stakeholders.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and A*STAR Agency for Science, Technology and Research from Singapore have developed remote healthcare services that allow patients to be treated globally independent of time and location and irrespective of the solutions provided by hardware and data system suppliers. In Finland, the first trial services for treating cardiac patients and patients suffering from chronic illnesses have been promising.

If the move from the typewriter to the computer was a revolution, then the next stage in evolution could see humans interacting with computers inserted into their clothes. The EU-funded WearIT@work project has imagined just such a scenario. Its researchers have been busy exploring a range of applications where wearable technology could facilitate a new form of human-computer interaction to significantly improve the productivity of workers and even help save lives.

The European Journal of ePractice, a new online publication on eGovernment, eHealth and eInclusion has been launched as an initiative of the European Commission's ePractice.eu portal. The aim of European Journal of ePractice (EJeP) is to reinforce the visibility of articles as well as that of professionals in eTransformation, building an author's community which will strengthen the overall ePractice.eu activity.

An EU-funded project developing an intelligent healthcare monitoring and decision-support system is about to start testing two applications. Now that the technical implementation has been completed, the SAPHIRE project's pilot studies will involve monitoring cardiovascular patients in a hospital in Romania and in homecare in Germany.

Despite technological progress and enhanced competition, more than one in three Europeans are still excluded from fully benefiting from the digital society. Benefits of €35-85 billion over five years could be generated if society would be made more inclusive, websites more accessible and broadband Internet made available to all EU citizens. Commission presents its e-Inclusion initiative to Council, calling on Member States to support a number of key actions, including an awareness campaign for 2008 "e-Inclusion, be part of it!" e-Accessibility legislation, similar to that of the USA, is also under consideration.

Traditionally home automation, consumer electronics, mobile communications and personal computing were strictly separate domains all having their own industrial companies, with their own business plans, standardization efforts and form factors. By introducing the networked home, also called the connected home, this traditional separation of activities is no longer valid.