Mobile Medicine

THE GERMAN COMPANY VITAPHONE offers a cell phone for heart patients that doubles as an electrocardiogram. The Herz Handy features built-in electrodes on the back. If you think you're having irregular heartbeats or a heart attack, just call a number and place the phone on your chest. The data is sent to a hospital, which can dispatch an ambulance if needed. A built-in GPS receiver tells the hospital where you are. (Just make sure you have your heart attacks within the carrier's service area.) 

This could be the first of a new category of medical cell phones. Imagine a phone that automatically calls a cab if your breath reveals too much alcohol. Or how about an antenna that doubles as a rectal thermometer? The possibilities are, unfortunately, endless. 

Parenting for Couch Potatoes
A new teddy bear called the TeddyCam comes with a video camera mounted inside its nose. The bear wirelessly transmits video to a nearby standard TV outfitted with TeddyCam hardware. Parents can watch TV while the baby sleeps in the other room. If they hear screaming, they can simply change the channel to find out what's causing all the ruckus. Perhaps future bears will change diapers and feed babies as well. 

Latest Pentagon Weapon Stinks
Pentagon researchers are working on a stink bomb for driving away the enemy or angry mobs of civilians. According to an article in New Scientist, one challenge is developing a smell that all cultures find offensive. I think a bigger problem is that such a weapon could be rendered useless by holding one's nose.

Deja Pooch
A company here in Silicon Valley called Genetic Savings & Clone -- yes, that's really the company's name (welcome to California) -- has plowed $9 million into technology for cloning pets. The company, in a partnership with cattle cloning pioneer Texas A&M University, plans also to genetically engineer pets to make them live longer and exhibit other characteristics requested by customers. (I'd like to order a dog with opposable thumbs so Fido can bring not only my newspaper and slippers, but also a cup of coffee.) Unfortunately, cloned pets may initially cost more than $100,000 each. 

Fur Ball Fun
A new software company makes computer games for cats! Double Twenty Productions makes the $14.95 CyberPounce, which displays mice, frogs, fish and other animals that randomly move around the screen to attracts cats. The game has two modes: Two players (you vs. your cat) and one player (the computer vs. your cat). The game was created by Matt Wolf, who designed Virtua Fighter and Daytona for Sega. Now if only they could make a PC-based sandbox...

Something In the Air
Australia plans to reduce the country's emissions of greenhouse gasses by injecting sheep and cattle with an anti-farting vaccine. Methane emissions from the backsides of livestock account for about 14% of the country's ozone-depleting gasses. 

Palms of the Rich and Famous
First Claudia Schiffer. Now Michael Jordan. Famous people are introducing special-edition Palm organizers. Claudia is the grizzled veteran of designer Palms, introducing a sleek blue-green Palm Vx last fall. Recently, Michael Jordan introduced cheap M100 and M500 Michael Jordan Edition Palm Handhelds. (A company called PTN Media has signed license agreements with both celebrities granting rights for their names and likenesses to hawk the Palms. In Jordan's case, His Airness gets 12% of the proceeds, not to total less than $1 million per year.) I've even heard rumors of a Christina Aguilera organizer looming menacingly on the horizon. Where will it end? The Charlton Heston NRA iPac? How about an Eminem signature ^%$# mother $#@!%$% Visor? (Instant prediction: All these celebrity handhelds will fail in the market.) 

Only In Japan
Japanese toy maker Takara Co. is planning to introduce canned "Godzilla Meat" in October. In reality, the contents are corned beef. But the label says "Godzilla Meat" and shows pictures of Japan's favorite giant mutant lizard -- I guess to make it more appetizing. After all, who wants to eat canned corned beef? 

Proof You Can Buy Anything on the Internet
How about a guitar shaped like a pair of scissors? You can buy any kind of guitar imaginable from Dave Lewis Guitars.

New sandals leave Christian footprints that say, "Jesus" and "loves you." 

Ad Creep
The New York Taxi and Limousine Commission decided recently that there just isn't enough intrusive advertising in New York. And they're going to do something about it. The commission approved a trial to place electronic signs flashing advertising on 50 New York City cabs. What's interesting is that the signs feature technology called "Ad Runner," and are linked to -- and tracked by -- satellites that download to the signs location-specific ads. While on Park Avenue, for example, the cab can advertise a diamond sale at Tiffany's. When that same car enters the Bronx, it can flash ads for home-security systems. 

Have you seen advertising in a completely new context? Let me know! 

Follow-Up
I first reported on the Maricopa County Jail Cam September 5, with Follow-Ups in issues 14 and 20. Salon recently published a very good article about the absurdity -- and possible illegality -- of the whole voyeuristic enterprise. 

Last issue I asked if anyone knew the URL for the first web-based hypnotist, and several of you did. Here's the web site: http://www.nettiser.com.au/hypno

Have you seen additional coverage of a Mike's List item? Let me know! 

Reader Web Sites
I've got so many great reader web sites to tell you about, that I can't restrain myself. I'm going to tell you about three great sites by Mike's List readers. 

The first is Goofball, a wacky humor site I mentioned months ago. It's so fun I've gotta mention it again. Check out Goofball!

Here's a site for you hardcore tradeshow enthusiasts. Conferenza is the industry's best-regarded source for information about technology events. Conferenza provides a bi-weekly e-mail newsletter; a Web site with exclusive event reviews and features; and a comprehensive database of upcoming and past events. Subscribe to the newsletter by sending an email message to [email protected], or check out the Web site.

Finally, a brand-new newsletter and web site by Microsoft Office guru Jim Powell, as well as Dick Archer, Yael Li-Ron, Jim Boyce and Joel T. Patz gives you the insight, advice and tips to master Office. Hey, we use Office every day. But by reading The Office Letter newsletter we can all work smarter and go home early!

Get YOUR web site on the high-traffic Mike's List Reader Links page. HERE'S HOW! 

Gotta-Get-It Gadgets
IBM announced last week the world's highest-resolution monitor: the IBM T220. The monitor boasts 200 pixels per inch, and 9.2 million pixels overall packed into a 22.2-inch TFT-LCD screen. The downside, of course, is the price. Get ready to pay $22,000 for the privilege of owning this monster. 

Erricson announced an electronic pen called the Chatpen CHA-30, which uses an infrared camera, an image processor, Bluetooth, GPRS and other new technologies to record and transmit your scribbles to nearby cell phones and PCs. The company plans to sell it to catalog vendors and others starting in the first quarter of 2002. 

Have you seen an amazing new toy? Let me know! 

Wacky Web Sites

Whenever you're feeling low, nothing brightens your day like watching a Flash animation of Bruce Lee wailing on people. 

A French site called Piano Graphique hijacks your keyboard, transforming it into a techno-industrial synthesizer. 

NASA wants to send your name to Mars on a CD-ROM. (Why, I have no idea...)

Anyone who grew up in Southern California like I did knows Cal Worthington, a used-car salesman best known for quirky, low-budget, late-night TV commercials featuring large, wild animals always identified as "my dog Spot." Like everyone else, ol' Cal has his own wacky web site. 

If you're not colorblind, this web site will show you what it's like to surf the web with a red/green color blindness. If you are colorblind, you won't be able to tell the difference. 

Here's everything you need to build a robot army capable of taking over the world.

Need an ego boost? Visit usoFyne to be flattered by the web server. They'll even send you e-mail messages filled with platitudes about how great you are. Their motto? "Blowing sunshine up your ass since 2000."

 If you see a really crazy web site: Let me know! 

Reader Comment
In response to my "Wacky Microsoft Knowledge Base Article of the Year" last issue, reader Ed Hansberry wrote, "Think the Barney Knowledge Base article is odd? Check this one out: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q145/6/75.asp"

I get hundreds of reader e-mail messages per week, so I can publish only a tiny fraction of them. I reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity. Send comments to: [email protected]

Last Week's Mystery Pic
No, it's not a "prison tattoo machine," "wrist-mounted nose-hair trimmer" or a "nuclear powered chastity-belt" as suggested by some readers. Last week's Mystery Pic showed one of the prop "webshooters" Spiderman will use in the upcoming Spiderman movie. It was on display at a recent consumer electronics trade show. Congratulations to reader Peter McPhee for being first with the right answer.

 Have you seen an amazing, hard-to-identify picture? Let me know!

Mystery Pic

What is it? Send YOUR guess to [email protected]. I'll publish the name of the first person who identifies it in the next issue of Mike's List.