Slashdot Mirror
Best High-Tech Toilet?
shellac writes "For a number of years now, Japan has had incredibly high-tech toilets, complete with a funky electronic control panel that controls a water jet for cleaning the posterior, a hot air blow dryer, a fake flushing sound to cover up those noisy "Dumb & Dumber" style sessions, a seat warmer, and other nice features, not to mention the occasional amusing gaijin encounter. Prototype models can also chemically analyze urine using lasers. The manufacturer, Toto, has made these available in the US and in other countries, but they have failed to largely fulfill their promised potential, despite their popularity in Japan. There is some evidence Kohler toilets is keeping these out of American markets. The toilets also appear to be a victim of poor marketing on Toto's part, which in all fairness may be due to Western advertising taboos that do not exist in Japan. I know I would love to have one of these, and I suspect many others would as well. What does that /. community think of these toilets? Can anyone post a personal review?"
I'll buy one if they let me hook it to my LAN, and have a panel with Mozilla built into it. Then I can read /. while I'm in there!
At Matsushita's research center in Tokyo, scientists explain how they are working on embedding technology in the porcelain that will catch a urine sample, shoot it full of lasers and in short order test it for glucose, kidney disease and eventually even cancer. One of the researchers, Tatsuro Kawamura, says future smart toilets will compile and compare medical results day by day, allowing doctors to spot important changes.
I'd be interested in hearing more about this. Will it store the information locally or be hooked up to a network? How will it know who's using the toilet? Who's to say they won't test for drugs or something in the future? This could get pretty invasive.
Like America is not?.
--
Evna
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Incase you missed it, here's the whole Ask Slashdot article summed up in two lines:
"Dear Slashdot....I enjoy jets of water shot at my anus, and i'm willing to pay the big bucks for it!! Any suggestions?"
Think about the sum total of what you've just read, then maybe it will hit you. Slashdot certainly isnt what it used to be, is it....And you thought Yahoo Internet Life was bad? Welcome to the new Slashdot, folks -- What once was the proud sentinel of geekdom has been reduced to running stories on toilets. Sure smacks of "stuff that matters" to me, I tell ya. Anyway, before you go off and moderate me down for being off-topic or trollsome, ask yourself this: How many other articles were rejected (re: meaningful, important articles, peoples work, interesting points of view, etc.) so that this story could make it in? On Easter, of all days. Simply charming.
Surprisingly, i'm not trying to troll here. I'm trying to make a point. Just a day or two ago, I had written to Ask Slashdot regarding the issue of Linux on the desktop, and whether it was truly fair to call it "dead", when infact viable, stable, professional-quality desktops are available for Linux. HP certainly doesnt think the Linux desktop is dead -- They bundle GNOME with HP-UX. IBM isn't crazy either; They bundle both KDE -and- GNOME in AIX... So whats all the hub-bub about Linux being dead on the desktop? But, nope, we cant discuss that.....Not here on Slashdot. There are more important things to address in a public forum such as this..
Like how to have jets of water shoot at our anuses.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag