Google swallows SMARTSPOON manufacturer Lift Labs Google has made an investment in a truly shaky business with the purchase of a company which makes smartspoons for Parkinson's sufferers. Mountain View has slurped Lift Labs, which makes a "tremor-cancelling" spoon called Liftware. This device looks like an ordinary spoon, but contains microchips and sensors to work out the …
my mate wrote a program (no, not a fucking app) years ago. this is when i was employed by someone else..... you entered your annual salary into it, and pushed "GO" whenever you went to the toilet . then you pushed "STOP" when you got back and it would tell you how much money you made whilst having a shit.
Not only regulation. Small production runs as well.
Also in the UK, you're not selling to the customers, you're selling to the NHS or social services. Which means products don't improve as they should. As an example that's why Apple and Samsung destroyed the previous top mobile phone manufacturers, who'd forgotten who the customers were, and did everything to keep the networks happy.
"I'd probably have bought him a mug" - what a factious glib comment
You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. A mug even half full is no use to him as the tremor causes the mug to shake too much and spill over the edge. He is forced to drink coffee/tea from a "sippy" cup. Which for an intelligent man in his early 70's is not much fun. All his soups have to be liquidised thoroughly before he could drink them. Which takes alot away from the pleasure of a hearty home made soup.
You said he couldn't eat soup, not that he couldn't drink from a cup either. I was not being glib, because if you'd said his tremor was that bad I would have suggested this spoon is probably unable to combat such extreme issues. He doesn't have a tremble, he has a full-on shake - surely when it's that bad just getting the spoon in the bowl is pushing it?
They do make anti-spill mugs though I think often for use at sea, if he can physically hold the thing one of those might be of use for regular drinks... tea through a sippy cup can't taste the same.
Technology to stabilise an object being held or attached to something moving.
<cynical>What possible reasons could google find to invest in such a business?</cynical>
Sounds like a solid investment to me, I do hope they continue and expand the medical uses along with everywhere else this will be used.
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I cannot help but wonder whether a fairly heavy (within reason, obviously) spoon suspended in some sort of gimballed handle would not do the same thing merely by virtue of its inertia, no motors at all (well, there's always the fully green solution of sticking said spoon to a chicken's head and holding the chicken itself - guaranteed zero movement, just make sure you don't use it to eat chicken soup)...
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