Pee into your smart phone, diagnose STDs
Tell someone on the street to pee into their smart phone, and they’re sure to tell you ‘no.’ Or, to screw off. Or, that they’d rather move to Russia and become a journalist.
Yet, remarkably, soon such a ludicrous proposal could become commonplace. That suggestion again: whizzing into your BlackBerry.
According to the U.K.’s Guardian newspaper, doctors and tech experts are developing a device application that will allow users to insert urine or saliva into their smart phones to diagnose various STDs.
The in-development tests will work like so: users can pee or spit onto a computer chip about the size of a USB plug-in, pop it into their smart phones and “receive a diagnosis within minutes,” says the Guardian, “telling them which, if any sexually transmitted infection, they have.”
Which devices – Windows phones, iPhones, BlackBerrys or otherwise – will carry the STD app hasn’t yet been specified. The program will also work on personal computers, too, the paper notes.
Now, you have to concede, no matter where you stand on the app’s principle, this technology is pretty cool. U.K. researchers have dumped about $6.5 million into the program, which is aimed at tackling the country’s growing STD rate among twentysomethings.
The idea being, This demographic is too embarrassed to get itself checked out by doctors. We have to bring a modern, user-friendly STD test to them or God help us all.
Of course, how the general public will react to sticking a pee stick into the very phones they place to their head every day remains to be seen, but at $1 or $1.50 per unit – what they’re to be sold at in nightclubs or pharmacies, like condoms – it’s a safe bet they’ll become popular if they prove to be as accurate as advertised.
As the Observer.com notes, such a device gives a “whole new meaning to status update.”
No word yet on if the unnamed STD app is a close relative of the Cheating Spouse app, which was notoriously unveiled last month.
By Jason Buckland, MSN Money
Posted by: Bob Campbell | Nov 8, 2021 6:13:00 PM
This is great.
But as I diabetic I've been wondering why smart phones can't release an app for checking your blood sugar? This would benefits millions of people on a daily basis.
Just a thought.
Posted by: wittynamehere | Nov 9, 2021 12:15:25 PM
I think Bob's suggestion is much better! If you are too embarrassed to get tested for an STD by a medical professional, how do you manage getting laid in the first place? I think this app will be a privacy concern, much like the other app mentioned in this article.
Posted by: John | Nov 14, 2021 6:07:09 AM
What a joke. So people are too embarrassed to see a doctior if they suspect they have an STD? I wonder if they would also be too embarrassd to see a doctor if they tested positive.