The Korean company called Echery that strangely enough uses Yahoo and Hotmail as official e-mails, presents a rather strange mouse pad that, as you can see, is not simply laid down on the desk but it’s mounted on it. According to the designers of this pad, it will avoid unnecessary fatigue in your shoulder and wrist. In my opinion, it’s all down to the individual, this concept could prove useful and practical to some, but plain annoying to others as I don’t really get how you can put amouse on there without it sliding off the pad…

I can’t see myself using that mouse pad, can you? It doesn’t seem to give any precision at all, and I wonder how it avoids the fatigue on shoulder and wrist… It’s inexplicable and yet again, strange!

more images after the jump

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The latest offering from the world of body electronics is an intelligent shirt that can sense the wearer’s vital signs such as body temperature, heart rate and respiration. The Smartshirt from Sensatex, a developer of integrated smart textile systems, is a cotton shirt that lives up to its name. Made of fully-washable fabric that has a patented nanotechnology-based conductive fibre seamlessly integrated within, the t-shirt is designed to digitize the wearer information and then transmit it via a wireless connection to a remote back-end system for real-time monitoring. Another advantage of the wireless connectivity is that it eliminates the need for a trained technician to be present to perform the data transfer or retrieval.

The technology used to develop the Smartshirt was first commissioned by the U.S Department of Defense, DARPA, presumably because of the huge investments involved, and took 5 years to see the light of day.

The applications of this invention are innumerable and some of them include remote monitoring of patients with chronic illnesses and elderly patients, training support for athletes, monitoring of individuals who work with hazardous materials, and tracking of professional truck drivers’ vital signs to alert them of fatigue. The price tag on the t-shirt is not available as yet and the actual deployment will begin later this year. The company is looking for beta testers – contact them and you could be one of the lucky ones to get a feel of the Smartshirt for yourself.

Your teeth might be clean, but your toothbrush sure ain’t. The VIOlight Toothbrush Sanitizer & Storage System ($50) uses hardcore germ-fighting UV light (just like hospitals and dentist offices) to eliminate up to 99.9% of bacteria left on your toothbrush. Not only does the system kill harmful microorganisms, it also handily holds four toothbrushes (including children’s and electric ones) and has a one-button easy activation that will automatically shut off in 10 minutes. And once you get addicted to zapping the gross stuff at home, you’ll want to invest in the Violight Travel Toothbrush Sanitizer ($30) for killing your mouth germs on the road.