Wired Wednesday 005

This week on News 1130 radio in Vancouver, I spoke about these tech topics for Wired Wednesday with Ben Wilson:

• Withings Smart Thermo(meter)(source)
  A new product from Withings hopes to make taking temperatures easier without the need of poking, prodding a loved one. The $99US ‘Thermo’ just won innovation honors at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas for having 16 sensors, wifi and a simple skin touch system for gathering temperature information. It also has a companion smartphone app that lets you track a fever over time and when medicines were given.
• Kodak Super 8 FILM camera(source)
  Many think that film is dying out but Kodak is looking to bring it back in a big way with a non-digital film camera for shooting movies. Using 15m film cartridges, Kodak hopes to reinvigorate filmmaking later this year. The new camera system is targeted at wannabe filmmakers and while it lets you shoot analogue film, it also has a few modern conveniences like a 3.5″ screen, SD card slot and an HDMI port for instant viewing of what you shot. Price TBA.
• Smart Bandage(source)
  Researchers from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom have developed a smart bandage. This bandage is “a prototype of the color-changing bandage, which contains a gel-like material infused with tiny capsules that release non-toxic fluorescent dye in response to contact with populations of bacteria that commonly cause wound infections.” It would be used to alert health officials of the potential for infection hours before evidence of clinical symptoms. It could even decrease bacterial resistance to antibiotics by decreasing antibiotic use for wounds only when necessary. This bandage could be used on any kind of wound including surgical or burn wounds. At a certain point, when the wound is populated by a colony of harmful bacteria, microbes protecting the colony start emitting toxins to defend the colony from the body’s immune system. More info