New mobile phone app to help diabetics  

澳洲三名华裔学生推出手机程序服务糖尿病人

(ECNS) -- Three Chinese students from the University of Sydney unveiled a diabetes-friendly mobile phone app, which can help patients better manage their conditions.

The app "BlueClover," developed by Andrew Chen, an information technologies student, and his fellow students Donald Zhang and Robin Huang, was designed to help diabetics track their daily food and beverage intake.

It was showcased at the annual Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank Forum in their "Apps for Asia" program.

"At the moment, diabetes patients are required to manually record and calculate their blood glucose levels. Our app features a logbook that electronically records essential information needed for the management of the disorder, such as blood glucose levels, amount of carbohydrates consumed for meals, and insulin levels," Chen said.

"BlueClover" was designed with additional functions such as object recognition and barcode scanning for automated input of food nutrient information into the users' logbook.

"Instead of having to manually record the information of the foods they eat, users can scan the barcodes of the products they consume," Chen added.

The app will be available commercially in eight months, said Chen, adding that his team is also planning to launch a Chinese version.