Thursday, July 3, 2008

Attempt to stop teen teen smoking


We all know that smoking makes you look really cool these days and who doesn't want to look the coolest ... well Teens of course.

Japan have rolled out a cigarette machine that is supposed to verify if you are of age to smoke or not. How this worked is the machine has a face recognition camera that supposedly can detect your age. Interesting enough, and of course it's in Japan where they are quite good a finding ideas for things via technology.

So now these machines have been rolled out onto the street and they did seem to be working until someone figured out a way to hack it. How you ask? Well the kids are able to use a picture of a someone older and hold it up to the machine and look at there you are verified.

Here is the link to the article: Linky

Why did I post this, well it relates to smoking and the fight against it. And of course us RT's are anti-smokers right! Just thought it was interesting and fun. People are trying to cut down smoking.


Enjoy.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

New Device helps a paralized person breathe.


Interesting respiratory related news, the FDA as approved a device called the NeuRx DPS RA/4 that can be implanted in the diaphragm which in turn stimulates the diaphragm and allows certain spinal cord injured patients to breathe for at least 4 hours a day off of the ventilator.

Here is a article to read more in this device. Diaphragm-Pacing Device.

This can definitely improve the quality of live for a person with paralysis. This device was approved by the FDA under the Humanitarian Device Exemption which is a approval process that in intended for devices that treat less than 4000 people per year.

I'm all for this, but really will be start seeing many people on this type of device? Is this something we might need to have a little training on? Who knows, I just thought it was interesting technology to know about.



Keep on driving on RT's.