Sony patent proposes camera button to send vital-signs info

Sony has filed a patent application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office for a way for smartphone users to tag the photos they take with their vital signs. The patent proposes a "camera button with integrated sensors," where the user can tag photos with vital sign information such as blood pressure and body temperature. It's all about integrated sensors.

The patent application filed last November and made known earlier this week is from Sony Mobile Communications in Lund, Sweden. The patent application describes a mobile device camera sensor that records the stats of the photo taker, information including skin conductance, body temperature, blood pressure, respiratory rate, pulse rate, and blood oxygen level.

That information would be recorded into memory and tagged to a specific photo, a new twist in metadata for digital photos. But who would use this and why? You won't get many answers from the patent application, which descries the sensors but does not specify which application areas could result.

Here's at least a possible clue, though. "At Sony, we are targeting the medical business for mid- to long-term growth," the Sony President and CEO, Kazuo Hirai, has said. As a major exporter of consumer electronics, they have not lost sight of the opportunity their technology presents for health products. "We can leverage our technology base in image-capturing sensors, lenses, 3-D technology, image processing, to mention just a few areas," Hirai said in an interview in Tokyo last year.

The technology in the patent application possibly, as a guess, may be used as part of a patient's dealings with doctor's offices and hospitals. The patient could possibly take a photo and attach vital signs without having to be hooked up to medical equipment. The patent application makes the following point.

"Usually when measuring vital signs, sensors, connected by wires to bulky measuring equipment, have to be placed or used on the person's body. However, in this case the measuring of vital signs has to be done in another way since using cumbersome sensors and measuring equipment is not a viable option."

According to the application, the "first aspect of the present invention relates to a method for tagging a recorded image in a mobile communication device, wherein said recorded image is recorded by a camera unit in said mobile communication device, the method comprising the steps monitoring, using at least one sensor in said mobile communication device, a user's vital signs, recording sensor information relating to said user's vital signs when said user operates said camera unit in said mobile communication device and is in contact with at least one of said at least one sensors in said mobile communication device, recording an image from said camera unit when said user operates said camera unit in said mobile communication device, determining a tag based on said recorded sensor information, assigning said tag to said recorded image and storing and organizing said recorded image in a memory in said mobile communication device based on said tag."

The sensor information, it added, may comprise information regarding any of the following user's vital signs: body temperature, pulse rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, blood oxygen level and skin conductance. The application mentioned a sensor integrated in a camera button in the mobile communication device, "wherein said sensor and camera button may be operated when said user operates said camera unit for recording an image." The inventor named in the patent application is Gunnar Klinghult.

Explore further: LG Electronics HMD patent sets sights on video viewing

More information: via Engadget

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Source: http://phys.org/news293505376.html

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A Chemtrails Observer - London Lady

Description:

I saw a lady taking pictures of the Sky, and upon looking up - that sky was pretty busy, and she explains.http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2002 pr/21/uk.medicalscienceMillions subjected to germ warfare tests in the UK - see the guardian link aboveMillions were in germ war testsMuch of Britain was exposed to bacteria sprayed in secret trialsShare 9785inShare7EmailAntony Barnett, public affairs editorThe Observer, Sunday 21 April 2002 10.23 BSTThe Ministry of Defence turned large parts of the country into a giant laboratory to conduct a series of secret germ warfare tests on the public.A government report just released provides for the first time a comprehensive official history of Britain's biological weapons trials between 1940 and 1979.Many of these tests involved releasing potentially dangerous chemicals and micro-organisms over vast swaths of the population without the public being told.While details of some secret trials have emerged in recent years, the 60-page report reveals new information about more than 100 covert experiments.

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Source: http://www.disclose.tv/action/viewvideo/146414/A_Chemtrails_Observer__London_Lady/

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Happy Birthday, Colton Haynes!

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Bordens win Baywood golf cart parade

Baywood in Long Neck has an annual July 4 golf cart parade. Entries are crazy - including tiki bars, Egyptian pyramids, and more. But this year, Baywood residents Jack and Lisa Borden, who married in June, decided to further celebrate their wedding in the Baywood Golf Car Parade. They won first place out of many entries.

Source: http://capegazette.villagesoup.com/p/bordens-win-baywood-golf-cart-parade/1028993?source=rss

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Defecation Nation: Pig Waste Likely to Rise in U.S. from Business Deal

A proposed acquisition of Smithfield Foods would send pork to China and leave more pig feces in the U.S., potentially increasing the risk of superbug infections and other diseases

By Dina Fine Maron

Image: Corbis

• 

  Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...

  Read More??

We put up with a lot of crap?literally.

Last year, at least 4.7 billion gallons of hog manure in the U.S. came from one company, Smithfield foods, the nation's leading pork producer. The feces load will rise if U.S. regulators green-light a proposed merger that would bring the firm under the auspices of a China-based company. That increase could also promote the growth of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and increase health risks for hog farm workers and the communities living around them.

Under a proposed multibillion-dollar deal, Hong Kong?based Shuanghui International Holdings would buy Virginia-based Smithfield Foods. The stated purpose of the merger, the companies say, is to efficiently increase pork production. If the deal goes as planned, Smithfield will ultimately export more meat to China, where the appetite for pork continues to climb upward even as Americans buy less of it. But with that expected production boost comes an uptick in hog feces left in the U.S.?and subsequent health and environmental risks.

The impacts of industrial-scale hog production like Smithfield?s have played out in the courts and medical journals for decades?largely from the way the firms handle the waste. The majority of hog feces from Smithfield sits in earthen lagoons where it naturally ages for six to 12 months before the slurry is then sprayed on agricultural fields as fertilizer.

Studies on communities living around such farms have indicated individuals exposed to the odors and emissions from around the lagoons have more respiratory complaints and increased asthma symptoms. Moreover, when hogs are raised in crowded environments in industrial-scale farms they require greater quantities of antibiotics (pdf) to promote growth and compensate for unsanitary conditions. That antibiotic use is linked with increased antibiotic resistance in humans.

Indeed, researchers in particular worry that antibiotic-laden hog manure can seep into the water and air as well as bodies of people surrounding such farms, with subtle implications both for health and for the spread of antibiotic resistance. In one study high concentrations of antibiotic and multidrug-resistant bacteria were detected inside and downwind of an industrial-size swine production facility, but not upwind. Other work linked antimicrobial-resistant bacteria in groundwater and private drinking wells to swine facilities located upstream. This month more than 580 residents of eastern North Carolina?the state with the most Smithfield hogs?filed complaints against the company, charging that the pollution from that hog production deprives them of the use and enjoyment of their property.

Smithfield, which operates across 12 states, brought 15.8 million hogs to market in fiscal 2012?and each hog, according to the company, produced an average of 1,100 to 1,300 liters of manure during its lifetime (including the water used to push the pig feces into pits below their pens). Smithfield says there will be no changes to the company?s production practices or its sustainability plan. ?It will be the same old Smithfield?only better,? Larry Pope, company president and chief executive officer, told the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry on July 10. ?Without this opportunity to grow outside of the United States there is no opportunity for U.S. pork producers to expand.?

With the deal, Shuanghui is getting something more important than more meat, charges Usha Haley, professor of management and expert on emerging markets at West Virginia University. The company would also be acquiring the clout of Smithfield?s name and knowledge of U.S. production practices and technology, she says. The merger would then help fuel China?s shift toward even more hog farms that adopt Smithfield?s vertically integrated processes?namely, industrial-size farms that raise pigs in close quarters and dispose of their waste through the lagoon-and-spray method, thereby threatening to reproduce the same health and antibiotic-resistance issues in China.

Source: http://rss.sciam.com/~r/ScientificAmerican-News/~3/In_KtWyPk5E/article.cfm

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88% The Angels' Share

All Critics (85) | Top Critics (24) | Fresh (75) | Rotten (10)

The result is a sometimes gritty, occasionally charming Highland hybrid, but the final balance feels slightly off-kilter.

Loach takes us through the mysteries of whisky making, exploring the subtle tastes and scents in ways that will have audiences wishing they had a dram at hand. But a glass also serves more symbolic purposes ...

If you want to look for it, you'll find a layer of metaphor (the distilling process as a symbol of the characters' evolution) and social-realist commentary amid the gentle, life-affirming laughs.

[Ken Loach] and his longtime screenwriter, Paul Laverty, find a good balance between drama and wacky character moments.

A fairy tale with its feet firmly on the ground.

A lark, but it's a serious-minded lark, addressing issues of class and culture, the haves and have-nots.

They're a fun bunch of tart-tongued Scots, and if their adventures don't amount to anything of thematic significance, watching them is a pleasure.

A surprisingly warm and heartfelt film about a flawed criminal struggling to start a new life after the birth of his first child.

Ken Loach walks on the lighter side

The title, by the way, refers to the distillation process: the 2% of whisky that evaporates in the barrel is known as "the angel's share." I'm afraid there's more than 2% evaporation going on in Loach's latest.

Much like a stiff drink at the end of a long day, "The Angels' Share" gets the job done, but you're probably not going to remember it in the morning.

Loach's realism lends an easygoing, ramshackle quality to the film that smoothes over any lack of tightness.

Director Ken Loach's latest glimpse of the U.K. underclass is really two rather different movies, either of which I would've enjoyed on their own. But they don't really fit together in any satisfying or even logical way.

Whether Robbie pulls off his caper should be left for the audience to discover. But Loach's great cinematic switcheroo goes off almost without a hitch.

As heartwarming and uplifting as any tale could be that features vicious beatings and grand larceny.

While it has some likable characters, particularly its charismatic lead, it's impossible to shake the feeling that we've seen this movie before.

Lead actor Paul Brannigan, the product of Glasgow's working-class East End, is a natural.

The usual Loachian elements are all in place, but there is a gentle spirit at work here as well, and not just the alcoholic spirits around which the plot revolves.

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Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_angels_share/

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Analysis: Contentious oil spill claims set up BP for long legal battle

File photo of fire boat response crews battling the blazing remnants of the offshore oil rig Deepwater Horizon off Louisiana

By Mica Rosenberg

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Faced with hundreds of damage claims it says are fictitious and inflated, BP must decide whether to dive into a protracted legal battle it had sought to avoid when it settled a class action over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The British oil giant asked the Fifth U.S. Circuit of Appeals in New Orleans this week to halt the claims. Should its challenge before the three-judge panel fail, BP will face a choice: ask for a hearing by all the court's judges, appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, or try picking off individual cases one by one, legal experts say.

BP declined to comment on what its strategy would be.

At issue is how to interpret a 1,000-page settlement document BP negotiated with a committee of lawyers working on behalf of thousands of individuals and businesses affected by the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. The blast killed 11 men and dumped millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf in one of the country's worst environmental disasters.

BP estimated the settlement, approved by a U.S. District Court in Louisiana in 2012, would cost $7.8 billion, but the payouts may end up ballooning to billions more.

The company has already paid more than $2 billion toward the 198,021 claims filed under the agreement. Overall it says it handed out over $10 billion to those affected by the spill and around $14 billion in cleanup and response costs.

Several lawyers not involved in the case said BP should have known it might be on the hook for more money and erred by agreeing to a deal that had no payout cap.

BP said it stands by the settlement but insists the problem is the person appointed by the court to dole out the money, former Louisiana plaintiffs lawyer Patrick Juneau. The tussle is over how the administrator is calculating the amount of business losses due to the spill a claimant can be compensated for. BP takes issue with the time frame and the accounting methods Juneau is using.

Geoff Morrell, a BP spokesman, said Juneau's "misinterpretation" of the agreement "has ignited a feeding frenzy among trial lawyers attempting to secure money for themselves and their clients that neither deserves."

In a statement, Juneau said, "the proper place to address issues concerning the settlement agreement is in the courts."

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier of New Orleans, who is overseeing the explosion of spill-related litigation, has repeatedly backed Juneau's interpretation.

So BP appealed to the higher court.

LEGAL OPTIONS

At times during the oral arguments on Monday, the Fifth Circuit judges threw tough comments at BP's lawyer Ted Olson, who served as U.S. solicitor general under President George W. Bush.

"The parties can't come in and change the agreement after it's been made," Judge James Dennis said.

There is no time limit for the Fifth Circuit to decide BP's appeal. If the three judges rule against BP, the company can ask for what is called an "en banc" hearing at the same court but in front of all the Fifth Circuit judges.

Fewer than 3 percent of en banc hearing requests are granted, according to the Fifth Circuit's website.

Also built into the settlement agreement itself is an internal appeal process that BP can use to challenge individual payments it believes were excessive and victims can use if they feel they were wrongly denied.

Internal appeal panels are chosen by Barbier from a list of nominees put forward by both sides. Thousands of appeals have already been filed this way. The process can be costly: There is a filing fee, and if the ruling goes against BP, the company is required to pay 5 percent over and above the original damage award.

If either side is not satisfied with the decision of the internal panel, they can ask Barbier to take up a discretionary review on a case-by-case basis.

Joseph Rice, a lawyer who spent a year and a half debating the settlement terms with BP on behalf of the plaintiffs, said BP has taken a handful of cases to this stage, but Barbier has not chosen to hear them yet.

If all else fails, of course, there is always the highest court in the land. That would be a long shot for BP.

Arthur Miller, an expert on civil litigation at New York University, doubts it will go that far, saying the Supreme Court prefers to hear cases that set legal precedent and are not focused on narrow contract questions. "This is a one-off situation."

Settling in the first place was meant to help BP avoid drawn-out litigation, like the 20-year legal brawl over the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska. Claimants who opted in to BP's deal gave up their right to sue the company later.

The contested settlement replaced a process overseen by Kenneth Feinberg, an attorney who managed compensation for the victims of the September 11 attacks. Some plaintiffs were upset that damage awards under Feinberg were not flowing fast enough, and both sides agreed it would be better to settle.

Barbier is also overseeing a separate, multi-billion-dollar case to determine BP's federal pollution fines under the Clean Water Act, with potentially much higher liabilities. The second phase of that trial begins in September.

(Reporting by Mica Rosenberg; Additional reporting by Kathy Finn; Editing by Howard Goller, Amy Stevens and Prudence Crowther)

Source: http://money.ca.msn.com/investing/news/breaking-news/analysis-contentious-oil-spill-claims-set-up-bp-for-long-legal-battle

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