smoking

"Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world. I know because I've done it thousands of times." -Mark Twain

Can you relate? If one of your New Year's resolutions for 2012 is to quit smoking for good, here are a few Android apps that might help:

1. QuitNow! QuitNow! is a smoking cessation app that can help you track how long since you quit, how much money you've saved, and even the positive impact quitting has had on your health. QuitNow! has achievement badges as well, so you can try to make quitting … Read more

Marketing and design company SapientNitro unveiled an app today that allows smokers to see exactly what cigarettes are doing to their lungs.

The AR Lungs app uses augmented reality and a database of medically correct digital lungs to illustrate the effects of cigarettes. People point a Webcam or smartphone camera at their chest and see a superimposed image of the digital lungs.

Using sliders, a person can adjust how many cigarettes they smoke a day and for how long to get a visual representation of the damage and discoloration they've suffered. A nonsmoker, meanwhile, would see healthy, pink lungs.

The app was developed as an unconventional way of spreading the antismoking message. The company said it is using the potential of augmented reality to help raise disease awareness. The digital lungs paint a stark image of the consequences of smoking.

Computer users with a Webcam can check the app out for free here. … Read more

Too busy to keep up with today's tech news? Here are some of the more interesting stories from CNET for Thursday, June 30.

A hands-on look at Google+, using Google+ The CNET News staff takes a look at Google's new social-networking site. We like how Circles lets users segment friends, but we think the way the system suggests connections is challenging. Check out the new social service. More

Behind the scenes at TechShop (photos) As maker hub TechShop expands with a new location in San Jose, Calif., CNET's Boonsri Dickinson takes a tour of the San Francisco … Read more

A study of almost 6,000 people trying to quit smoking cigarettes finds that those who receive regular motivational text messages are twice as likely to quit than those who receive neutral text messages thanking them for participating in the study.

The txt2stop trial, led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, measured cotinine (a chemical in tobacco) levels in the participants six months after participants reported to try quitting.

The randomly selected txt2stop group received five text messages a day for five weeks and then three a week for the following 26 weeks, with encouragements such as: "Cravings last less than 5 minutes on average. To help distract yourself, try sipping a drink slowly until the craving is over."

The txt2stop group was also able to text words such as "crave" and "lapse" to receive a motivating message during episodes of weakness and craving.

The control group, meanwhile, received only one message every two weeks thanking participants for being part of the trial.

Only 4.9 percent of the control group abstained from smoking throughout the six months, as determined through cotinine testing, while more than twice as many members (10.7 percent) of the txt2stop group succeeded.

"We are delighted with the results and hope that text motivation will now become a standard part of the quitting process," says Glyn Mcintosh of QUIT, which helped develop the text messages and find volunteers for the study.

The researchers, whose findings appear in The Lancet this week, say that txt2stop worked well across all age and social groups in the study.… Read more

We all have habits to overcome, and we all know that Wilson's weakness is text messaging and abusing social networks, but what about me and Jeff? On today's show, you'll learn how Jeff overcame his filthy nail-biting and why I almost went bald at age 8.

It's challenging to differentiate between a habit and an addiction, but it's safe to say that an addiction is a behavioral pattern that escalates in frequency and advertises a lack of control. Smoking is one of the most pervasive examples of addiction in our society, but according to our first story of the day, text messaging may be the key to cessation!

According to new research at the University of Oregon, it may be possible to inhibit an individual's response to cravings brought on by addiction through reminders delivered via media like text messages.

"Research participants were prompted by eight text messages per day for three weeks to document their ongoing cravings, mood, and cigarette use" during the quitting process, the university said, and these messages may have helped some people curb their desire to smoke. Now if we can only find a way to help Wilson with his Facebooking...

A new book called "Cancel Cable: How Internet Pirates Get Free Stuff" by Chris Fehily serves as an instruction manual… Read more

A group of researchers who describe kicking a habit as "a war that consists of a series of momentary self-control skirmishes" have found a link between texting and controlling cravings among a group of 27 heavy smokers in Los Angeles who participated in two related studies.

In the first study, the findings of which are reported this month in the journal Psychological Science, the smokers performed a basic self-control task while three regions of their brains most involved in impulse control were scanned using fMRI. They then described their cravings and smoking patterns, and their urine and lungs … Read more

Everybody knows how hard it is to quit smoking cigarettes, and how important it can be to succeed. Now there's an app for that, or an add-on, to be specific. Quitomzilla from Quitometro is a free Firefox add-on that can help smokers kick the habit by counting down the time until or since Q-Day; by telling them how much money they're saving or could be saving by not buying cigarettes; and by nagging or bragging on themselves with paste-in messages.

Quitomzilla installs and configures like any Firefox add-on. We installed it, restarted Firefox, and clicked Add-ons on the … Read more

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today unveiled 36 graphic cigarette warning images, 9 of which will make their way to cigarette packages and advertisements in 2012, and they've given the public two months to weigh in, starting Friday.

Tobacco use is the leading cause of premature and preventable death in the United States, according to the HHS, and it is responsible for 443,000 deaths each year, with 1,200 current and former smokers dying prematurely every day due to tobacco-related diseases.

Dozens of countries around the world, including the U.S., already mandate the … Read more

The National Cancer Institute isn't changing one of its key messages: don't smoke--it'll kill you.

But the mortality data from its ongoing National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) involving more than 53,000 current and former heavy smokers ages 55 to 74 is so striking that the institute announced initial findings today, ahead of a more comprehensive report.

What the trial shows is that there have been 20 percent fewer deaths from lung cancer among trial participants who receive an annual low-dose CT scan than those who receive an annual standard chest X-ray.

While CT scans are already considered valuable … Read more