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iPhones Can Read Tattoo Ink For Medical Info

Posted by timothy on from the open-your-shirt-and-say-aaaaah dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Northeastern University have modified an iPhone to take readings from a special fluorescing nanoparticle tattoo ink, which can then measure sodium and glucose levels in the blood."

4 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Not Iphone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The Iphone doesn't actually do any of the work. The ink senses the chemical levels, and the LED's and filters read it off the ink. The only work being done is by the camera, which isn't really unique to the iphone.

    1. Re:Not Iphone by GrantRobertson · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Though I haven't thrown anything or hit anybody, I adamantly agree as well.

      I am so sick to death of damn near every mobile tech researcher and every media outlet of any form tying everything to the frikkin' iPhone for no damn good reason. I'm waiting for the headline that says, "iPhone wins Indy 500" just because some driver forgot to take his phone out of his pocket before taking off.

      What do they think, that Steve Jobs will reward them with a free iPhone? Or is it that they all fell for the marketing crap that told them they had to have an iPhone in order to be cool, and now they are trying to repair the cognitive dissonance that comes from not actually becoming cool by continuously promoting the very thing that embarrassed them? Could it possibly be that Apple has inadvertently (or perhaps advertently) created the first marketing campaign driven by customer's post-purchase embarrassment and disappointment? Naturally, no one would admit to such. It would confirm that they were wrong and create more intolerable cognitive dissonance.

  2. Re:Even without the iPhone, this is really cool by click2005 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It they can do that why cant they do something more useful like make the change visual. Tattoo goes red you're in trouble with no need to keep
    taking pictures of your arm every time. As simple as checking your watch.

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  3. Re:Even without the iPhone, this is really cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Please, please! Make a tattoo ink that fluoresces in the presence of birth control. And tattoo all the women with the word "SAFE" on their forehead, visible when they walk in the bar under a black light.