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A Black Box for People
lightwaveman writes "Developed for astronauts, a small device called 'the CPOD' does for people what black boxes do for airplanes. It's a compact, portable, wearable device -- a single piece of equipment that gathers a wide variety of vital signs. About the size of a computer mouse, a CPOD is worn around the waist. It's comfortable enough to be worn while sleeping. It's non-invasive. It takes only minutes to don. Importantly, it can track a person's physiologic functioning as they go about their normal routine -- they don't have to be tethered to some stationary device. It can store data for eight-hour periods for later downloading; alternatively, it can send it wirelessly, in real time, to some other device."
This is exactly what I have been looking for! If only it could be made so that it is hard to remove then it would be perfect for my daughter....
All the "invasion of privacy" posts that will follow from the fact that this can transmit your vitals wirelessly. I guess in this case it is somewhat true, but then again, what do I care if someone knows my heartrate is 84 and increases to 108 whenever a hot blond walks up?
Trolling is a art,
If they can make the cpod keep working after a human dies- why don't they just make the whole human out of the same stuff as the cpod?
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Sounds very much like the Medical Mood Ring.
This could be a medical breakthrough. There are so many times when you may have spurratic symptoms and when you go see the doctor he can't see any of them. With this he can see when something was happening what was going on. Help send them in a better direction. This could really help people out.
Evolution or ID?
... under my tinfoil hat!
One of my friends works as a carer in an old peopels home, she reckons this thing could be really helpful (since they are massively understaffed).
If they add a miniature harddrive and mp3 playback, I think they'll have an iPod killer!
Then you could analyse your body's response relative to your favourite music... and if you put a big enough color lcd screen on the thing, you could also have a screensaver thingie that produces psychedelic swirls based on your physiological data!
... data is always useful, and if astronauts and pilots wear these, we can get a much better picture afterward of how they met their deaths. For the price of a silly dongle hanging off their belts, this can give us a better outline of the accident.
Remember a couple of years ago about that small passenger jet that went offline, cruised until it ran out of fuel, then crashed? The fighter pilots scrambled to intercept it reported that the windows were misted over, hence they couldn't tell anything about the crew and passengers.
On the flip side, a combat vet with thousands of flying hours can find his flight status revoked due to some health metric that the flight doc didn't like. Flying a desk is a living hell for these guys.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
I wonder whether future versions will offer predictive capabilities? Imgine being told you are going to have a heart attack in 15 minutes? Now add wireless, and imagine have an ambulance show up, ask you to get in, and take you to the hospital just in time for your impending cardiac arrest. Gee wireless, just in time supply chain, predictive diagnostics, with that many buzzwords, its gonna be a hit for sure!
The CPOD is really just an extension of a device called a Holter Monitor that cardiologists use on their patients. Holters used to be just a tape recorder that recorded your heartbeat/respiration for up to 36-hours. Now you can get digital versions that do all that and MORE (for only $19.95! Order now!)
You can also plug them into ECG machines, have them transmit data over phone lines, via a radio while in a hospital, etc. I'm actually surprised it took NASA this long to adapt something that has been in use publicly for many years. It used to be that technology was developed by NASA and then the public sector adopted it.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Imagine how much this could help with the training and racing of serious endurence athletes.
Imagine the US postal cycling team support car having stats in real time on all of the cyclist during the tour de france. They could tell who needs a rest and who has the energy to lead, and adjust their drafting stratagies accordingly.
The posibilities seem almost limitless...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
I wanted to say something witty and get modded funny, something about "I've fallen and can't get up!" - but I honestly think in a few months, at best, infomercials will start catering this tech to the elderly. The boomers are moving towards geriatric age, they will want a RF based device in their home that auto dials 911 if they have a heart attack or a stroke.
Right now, if I am ADT or one of the home security firms, I am aggressively looking to buy, develop or partner with a hospice firm to tie the two together.
I can see it now... all the mods:
Warwalking mod: vibrates when you're in range of an open node
Bootcamp mod: cusses you out if your heart rate drops below a specified limit ("Get off yer ass, slacker! Double-time! hup! hup!")
slack mod: tells you to chill out if your blood pressure rises above a specified limit ("deep breath, dude... feel your chakra")
Add another Trek device to the list of real-world inventions.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.