Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's New Smart Bra Could Stop You From Over Eating
walterbyrd writes "A team of engineers at Microsoft Research have developed a high-tech bra that's intended to monitor women's stress levels and dissuade them from emotional over-eating. The undergarment has sensors that track the user's heart rate, respiration, skin conductance and movement — all of which can indicate the type of stressful emotions that lead to over-eating, according to Microsoft researchers. The data is sent to a smartphone app, which then alerts users about their mood."
I'm hungry!
Time to reboob.
Sacred cows make the best burgers.
Many of us guys that visit Slashdot could use a bra. Too bad it doesn't run Linux.
I'm actually pretty amused by the sensor rigged bra - heck, I wear a bra to run in anyway, way better than a separate heart rate monitor. Though no proprietary MS crap for me ;-) (Can't imagine they provide decent support, y'know?)
But it seems horribly tone deaf to decide to put their sensors in a bra, and then make the whole thing be about dieting. Please folks, try not to be assholes.
And for a price, Microsoft will let you look on googlemaps for GPS signals and sort by cup sizes.
"Mam, I'm not sure how to put this, but...your breasts are acting rather erratically at the moment..."
"Ugh, not again. I'm wearing a Microsoft bra. It has to be restarted every few hours or strange things happen."
How is this going to stop (the Slashdot reader) from over eating?
Steve Ballmer could model it.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
"Your current mood: horny. Why don't you try fucking that guy in the sunglasses in the corner?"
I know, sounds juvenile. But if people are going to let their GPS apps lead them onto airport runways, you never know...
I'm really curious how a bra will stop me (a man) from over eating. Maybe the title (lol, tit) should be "Microsoft's New Smart Bra Could Stop Women From Overeating".
if it offered tactile feedback instead of beaming data to a smart phone?
You know, when it goes outside of the established parameters it shocks the user...
it looks like you're eating a doughnut...
John_Chalisque
Frank: "You want me to wear a bra?" Kramer: "No. A bra is for ladies. Meet...the Bro." Maybe Bill Gates can get licensing rights for Microsoft from his pal Jerry Seinfeld. :-)
Damn it to hell.
Fat shreds memory and cognitive function, in often imperceptible ways but the effects do build over time. It increases an individual's chances of acquiring diabetes, heart disease and a number of other maladies. It is responsible for increased fatigue and reduces the efficacy of the immune system. People suffering from obesity, and that term applies much sooner than most would like it to, tend to be less productive, cost their family and employers more, and die sooner.
No, it is not appropriate to attempt shame someone over it. No, it is not justifiable to treat the individual as less than any other. This I am most decidedly against. However, fat is not something to be "accepted" as if it were a lifestyle choice; even if the war is never won, the individual should always fight. Regardless of the origin, be it stress, overeating, hormone imbalance, etc. Fat is something to fight. It is a medical condition and infinitely treatable.
It's one thing when a man, or woman, is bound to a wheelchair for life due to a condition one cannot correct from birth or from an injury or from disease. It would be quite another if that man, or woman, is bound to a wheelchair because they refused to do the physical therapy. I mean, we would all give the person their space after whatever event brought them to that point. We would all give them time. But at some point, you would lose respect for them, wouldn't you? Their apathy would be off-putting. Now imagine they wanted you to "just accept it".
The individual who is fighting deserves all the respect the individual who has won should receive. I would never grant the individual who refuses to fight that and nor should you. As for the fight, this bra is simply a tool to aid, in however limited way it may, that battle. It is not fat shaming. They're trying to help; they're not being assholes.
I say this as someone who has spent a lifetime fighting, and my war rages on.
place press your boobs to reboot.
. . .we're talking Ballmer's hands on your flesh, by proxy.
Might not be a bad thing if you're Mrs. Ballmer, but, otherwise. . .
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
From this one would assume that if women are overeating because of stress, the some sort of stress sensing panties are in order. Stimulation can automatically be applied and relieve the stress.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The fundamental problem with this is that overeating doesn't cause obesity.
Some recent scientific results (*) have clarified obesity, and are completely at odds with every "common knowledge" explanation. The bad news is that we don't know what causes obesity and there's nothing anyone can do [currently] to combat it. The good news is that it's not related to a) what you eat(**) b) how much you eat, c) your willpower, d) genetics, or e) exercise.
Relax, it's not your fault.
In the current model the digestive system presents a river of nutrients, from which the body takes what it needs to maintain a specific weight.The body has a set-point in the manner of a thermometer for how much nutrition to take in, and something in the environment disturbs this set-point(***), resulting in obesity. There is strong statistical evidence that this is not related to the amount or type of food eaten(*) (within dietary reason) or the level of exercise. Over 700 possible factors have been suggested, including Bisphenol-A in packaging, estrogenic compounds in the environment, and water fluoridation.
Your diet worked for you, and that's great; however, it didn't fix your obesity(***): something you did along with the diet changed the environment and your body regained a normal set-point. For this reason, no diet is universal: it's happenstance.
Exercise isn't what fixed your obesity. Again, nothing related to nutrition (within obvious limits) or exercise is the cause of obesity. Something else is at play. Whether exercise is good for you is a different issue; it's just not the cause of your obesity.
Modeling your body as a thermodynamic system sounds logical and "makes sense", but without actually going into starvation it's not the correct description of the problem. You can burn many calories simply by sleeping with fewer covers (more than you can by exercising), but your body will simply take more from the stream. This won't affect your obesity.
* Modern-day laboratory animals are fat, despite having the same diet and exercise as lab animals raised in previous decades. Statistically, the trend is very strong.
** A nutritional balance is necessary (of course). Whether junk food is good for you is a separate issue; however, it's not the cause of your obesity.
*** The difference in caloric intake between normal and obese is about 30 calories/day (about 3 peanut M&Ms), which is roughly 1% of your daily nutritional needs. No diet has this level of resolution, no diet can be this accurate by measuring servings without taking into account the condition of the serving (ie - chicken fattier than average, veggies drier than average, &c.)
I remember the days of twin floppies.
As Number 5 said "Nice Firmware"
It's amazing how our brains are evolved over millions of years to make sense, and yet some will look for any excuse not to use it. If they treat their own brain this way, why would they honor an app?
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
OK, they're off by a few months, but my first reaction to the headline was definitely "clearly, this is a joke...."
!Binge
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...because women would get hysterical...
I see what you did there.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
maybe microsoft will finally get something right
There is stuff out there like this already. Durex is working on it.
You're the asshole. A self righteous asshole.
So Microsoft's new slogan is "No fat chicks!"?
The Smart Bra can't stop me over eating. The Smart Bro or the Intelligent Manssiere probably could.
OK, so, I'm an emotional mess and my boobs are telling me not to eat while the rest of me is saying the complete opposite.
I'm totally going to not eat!
Who thinks of this stuff?
Apple will introduce an iBra that you can automatically unclip with an expensive iPhone app only.
Microsoft will then introduce a Windows Bra that is functional but unexciting, and be slightly irritating to operate.
An open source Linux powered bra will subsequently be developed, but it will take so long to fiddle with until you achieve the desired result that you end up forgetting what your goal was in the first place.
First it's an endless parade of diets and pills by doctors on weight loss...
Now it's micro$haft with a cutesy but ultimately worthless electronic gadget for wightloss. Wait... does this mean they're getting out of the software biz??
lol
Nothing like a jolt of electricity to the nips to convince someone to put down that tub of ice-cream.
Unless they're into that sort of thing, of course.
Microsoft employees found a way to finally touch some breasts!
All women are a mindless, vapid, weak-willed whores who need to be told what to do.
In other news, Microsoft is marketing a line of edibles ("Blue Food") and an app that will tell you when to eat it.
The fat chicks already have DD's. They're buried in the size 48 wastlines and "oh my god the humanity!" hips.
So is this going to have a touch interface?
Damn corporations, pushing products and lifestyles that make people fat!
Damn corporations, pushing products and lifestyles that make people nonfat!
I'm actually pretty amused by the sensor rigged bra - heck, I wear a bra to run in anyway, way better than a separate heart rate monitor. Though no proprietary MS crap for me ;-) (Can't imagine they provide decent support, y'know?)
But it seems horribly tone deaf to decide to put their sensors in a bra, and then make the whole thing be about dieting. Please folks, try not to be assholes.
Would you have preferred a body cavity instead? Perhaps your mouth would have been a more ideal place for Microsoft to insert their tech.
Much like heart rate monitors by other vendors, bras are not some sort of new perverted idea to monitor heart rate and stress levels.
And it's ironic that a guy has to tell a woman to get their mind out of the gutter.
I wish they'd developed something like this before I needed a bra.
"A team of engineers at Microsoft Research have developed a high-tech bra that's intended to monitor women's stress levels and dissuade them from emotional over-eating.
Actually, the team's original idea was to monitor the CEO's excitement levels and dissuade him from dancing..... so they created the "Bramer".
Then marketing got ahold of it.
How is offering a service equal to being an asshole? If you don't want to be alerted of your mood, don't buy the damn device. It isn't mandatory, Microsoft won't send a squad of mercenaries to force you to buy it.
And it isn't "shaming" at all, it sends the alert to your phone, not to everyone's you dumb fuck.
Micro$oft finding new data to provide to the NSA. You know...I wonder if they're monitoring all that bluetooth enabled heart rate data out there?
Good point about Microsoft not known for providing decent support.
Sports bra heart rate monitors are old hat, you can even get them on Amazon. Comments show that they provide great support even for large chested ladies, and are thin enough your nipples still show through.
I'm not sure I would wear a bra that told me I was overeating. I am thinking that one would stay in the closet, especially when I felt most like overeating.
Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
How the hell are you being tagged as insightful? You whine - and yes it is a whine - that they are being assholes because they dared to release a female-specific product to help women manage their weight when women face an image problem and yet, you so devalue why they did it.
Here's the tone: they are trying to help. Again: they are trying to help. The keyword here is help. Whether or not the product is gender specific is irrelevant. Whether or not there is an image problem out there or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether this is a tool that will help people manage their weight and it is.
They're taking advantage of what's available. In this case, women wear bras. It's a way to make the monitoring invisible. It's a way to not single anyone out. You say, "for heaven's sake don't only make it for women", so you would rather they not use the fact that most women wear bras in order to aid the health of women? You would rather discard any tool that would by its very nature have to be gender specific, because it was gender specific? If not, what the hell are you saying?
As for the image problem. I'm well aware of it. But God almighty, more are dying by not doing anything about their weight than those over-correcting by orders of magnitude.
Here is how women died in 2010:
http://www.cdc.gov/women/lcod/2010/index.htm
You won't find eating disorders or poor self esteem. This is not to say that these aren't serious issues, but the means to do so is certainly not ignoring weight. (Which plays a HUGE role in the number one killer of women, heart disease.)
If I'm having an argument with someone or am in some other similar stressful situation, the last thing I want is for my phone to alert me and tell me that I'm in a bad mood.
I imagine sales of replacement phones will skyrocket when people start throwing their Windows phones in fits of anger.
Finally, Microsoft supports their customers properly.
To amplify the thought, they could have pitched it for fitness and activity monitoring, or to identify what times of day are causing stress without being particularly noticed.
A team of engineers at Microsoft Research have developed a high-tech bra that's intended to monitor women's stress levels
THIS is the hottest IT job for interns.
You aren't thinking the 'next step' in this.
Bra as a service
The best support you could hope for, exactly when you need it.
Of course, MS would need to really work on their support, the few times I have had to contact them for real tech issues, they have wanted to charge me before I could even leave a bug report.
...
Incorporate a taser in the garment, then you've got something.
"My boyfriend broke up with me. By email. Hand me that carton of chunky monkey..." KZERRRRK
"Here's your ice cream. Um, are you ok? Why do you smell like burning latex?"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You could curb your appetite by putting a picture of Bill Gates on your refrigerator.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
They could merge this with positional data and advertising revenue, and give the user a pass on overeating when they're in the vicinity of a paid sponsor. "I can't eat right now, my app says I shouldn't... no wait, it says I can eat now. Hey, there's a McDonald's."
In time, we'll all just believe our smart phones. "I'm hungry now for... a charbroiled steak. Yeah, at that Black Angus over there. Right now. Um, wait, aren't I a vegetarian?"
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Maybe they're looking for an excuse for deploy booth babes (as demo'ers) in their retail stores.
Personally, I would find that extremely bad taste, but I'd have to go look for myself rather than take someone's word for it.
Seriously..... then it wouldn't be restricted to women!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...that a Microsoft bra will be the best fitting?
Better to put the sensor on a device that can be worn with any bra. But, you'd have to want to wear the thing. What do you suppose the market is like for a "just in case I over-eat" sensor?
This will be in future amusing product failures internet memes.
Oooh, burn! Best comeback EVA!
.
And people wonder why there are not more women in the computer industry.
Does any normal person need a device to tell them they are stressed and emotional?
I have a solution:
In your wallet or purse where you store your money... place a card saying "Are you eating out of stress? again?" maybe with a little photo of something motivational on it. Just in case you are not aware of your feelings at the time you are hungry.
Or instead of all that tech cost. pay somebody to explain how your anxiety makes you feel hungry.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
I am very disappointed that this is not an invention to help babies. I am seeing far too many that are far too fat.
It's nice that Microsoft stays abreast with the latest technologies...
.
ya need to move beyond it.
Maybe women don't like to work with ugly nerds, maybe they're not smart enough, or maybe they just don't like it. Stop blaming everything on us,
You are the problem.
So the question remains, what do you want to do to solve the problem. Technical people like to solve problems, why can't they seem to solve this one?
For solving a problem brought to your attention by the Onion.
They clearly haven't looked at this from the users perspective.
I don't want some device telling me I am emotional and stressed and shouldn't be eating. Fact is I would probably smash the device after a while.
Of course on top of that, it hurts my emotional and stress levels to be told that I am emotional and am stressed out.
The whole thing is one big fail.
Never thought Microsoft would allow itself to become the target of jokes about bras!
I'm trying to understand the sociology behind this. Is it something like, "Steve Ballmer and some rich acquaintances were drunk at lunch and thinking they had enough money, so it is time to trash the company."
Microsoft needs adult supervision.
I would think wearing one of these things would itself be stress-inducing. A bra that nags?
Am definitely pressing ctrl alt del this time! Tech support guys are gonna love getting house call's on this one. On a serious note, now after all the information tech giants harvest out of your private life, now they want your cup size or that of your wife! Once again, the world just.. buys it.
DO NOT buy one of these for your wife or girlfriend. In fact, don't ever acknowledge that you're aware of its existence.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Still won't be as good as the abracadabra.
BTW, my tits are hot . . . they're on fire! No! They're really on FIRE!
Hang on, I like the idea of windows on a bra. Finally they might get an upvote from me.
Rumor has it they are coming out with the Shock Jock, to zap your nuts if you eat too much. Either that, it makes you use Windows Ate.
Table-ized A.I.
because I am a man
And of course collecting data about a person's mood and relating it to browsing habits is the next essential step for the improvement of targeted advertising.
*laughs*
Do you know many women? I haven't noticed that we spend a particularly small amount of time with our minds in the gutter.
If you're upset/stressed/worried and just want to do something simple to make yourself feel a little better, the worst thing you can have happen is someone nagging you about not doing to one thing that you think would make you feel better. It's a good way to get someone more upset and a good way to end up with a broken phone.
see a Beowulf Cluster of these things.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
Rather than sending information to a smart phone app the bra could just give back direct feedback to the woman by tightening the bra. For the really adventurous women they might consider the more more advanced version which applies selective electrical shock.
Unfortunately, because it is from Microsoft it will be too complex and filled with all sorts of extra features like the automatic back scratcher, software downloader, nipple massager, uplift and inflatorator with optional shaper and toner that links in through wireless networks to other bras and underpants in the surrounding area.
K.I.S.
The data is sent to a smartphone app, which then alerts users about their mood.
The upcoming Google version will respond by connecting to the user's Google glasses and popping up a Ben & Jerry's ad.
New banana and anchovy flavour If their Google Loo thinks they might be pregnant...
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
And Apple will offer many different, often bright pastel and neon, colors. Microsoft's will only come in brown.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Bras, huh? I know a few guys who would get an "extension" from "embracing" this technology.
The stigma of needing a bra is what drives me to eat. adding gadgets to it isnt going to fix my manboobs
Seriously... the women in my life that stress eat know damn well what they are doing which only compounds the stress. I simply can't see how this isn't going to be offensive to women and come of as a product from a group of arrogant, jack-ass engineers.
Just hope they work out the overheating issues.
> Hello, tech support...my Windows bra is not working.
| Are you sure your bra is on?
> Yes
| Have you tried re-dressing?
> Yes
| Okay, let's try starting in safe mode...re-clasp the bra while tapping your left nipple
"Oh, what sad times these are when passing ruffians can say 'ni' to helpless old ladies."
what's next, clothing lines and perfume from MS?
Dieting is only one particular and narrow application for such a device. What else will Microsoft be doing with all that data on where you are, what you're doing, and how you feel about it? This potentially takes surveillance to a whole new level. On a lighter note: - "Hal, open the fridge door." - "I'm sorry Dana. I'm afraid I can't do that."
But will it be as comfortable as the AbracadaBra, at least once the overheating issues are solved?
SmashTech - No smashing of tech involved
What did he do there?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria
Unity? Screw that: XFCE. Slashdot Beta? Screw that: SoylentNews. Australis? Screw that: Pale Moon. UX developers DIAF
Maybe the psychopathic fuckers should not push lifestyles at all, they push you to achieve happiness through consumerism, something that doesn't work.
Happiness is ephemeral, The media portray it as some kind of constant state, that is achieved by having a stable job, wife, kids, car, dog and consuming all the crap they sell.
But hey, if you like that they push all the crap that makes you ill and then try to sell you snake oil to fix it then you must be pretty happy right now.
Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.
Fat Women Don't Get Raped®
is that the microsoft support plan?
50,000 volts to the nipples.
Soon they'll learn
Microsoft - not just for laptops anymore.
WOW I've heard of sexist, but this takes the cake. Well it tells her not to eat the cake anyway.
Can it detect hypoglycemia in diabetics? The symptoms include a fast pulse and sweating.
But does it come with Windows installed?
Fitting, I guess, in light of the fact that they're related to an article about an incredibly useful piece of technology with all kinds of implications for stress monitoring (stress, of course, being a major cause of and/or contributor to all manner of physical and mental health problems) that's being used to ... help keep women skinny.
I can't decide whether to shake my head or hit it repeatedly on a desk.
Where are the smart boxers that stop you from thinking with your dick? I mean as long as we are going to carter to stereo types we should be equal about it.
So........ Micro$oft is getting into the underwear business and combining an smartphone app with the bra. When I am stressed out, I don't need an app to tell me to stop overeating. Because, lets face it, either the bra is going or the phone is getting busted up. LMAO
On a side note, is Win8 getting so little attention that they have to change their business plan from software to underwear?
Just saying!! lolol
Martha
Won't someone think of the Girls? Microsoft can't shoulder this responsibility! They have a long history of terrible support! And they lack sensitivity to develop a proper Blueing agent for this context. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpy75q2DDow) I mean, what woman wants to suffer a Bust Sensor Overload Detection ($B00B1E51) error while jogging, or raiding their fridge! Reboobing in public places can lead to fines or arrest in some jurisdictions!