Directed at the tens of millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans, or for those who want immediate dermatology-related diagnoses, Skin of Mine is a platform for measuring and monitoring moles and other skin conditions.

The app--updated in mid-May and compatible with the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad--is now available for $2.99.

The setup is simple: create a free account at SkinofMine.com, upload symptom photos to receive automated analyses, and pay on average $50 to receive a certified diagnosis directly from a Skin of Mine medical professional (these include doctors, nurse practitioners, and physicians' assistants) of the user's … Read more

Look out bedbugs. Technology is out to get you--again. Decades ago, using chemical pesticides, humanity seemed to have conquered the scourge of little bugs that were nibbling away at us while we slept, sometimes even while we were having nightmares about them. Then, about 10 years ago, after we discovered that pesticides were doing more than just wiping out bedbugs, they started to come back with a vengeance, like a bygone sci-fi franchise re-emerging to produce some lackluster prequels.

But while the nasty pests were busily frolicking from hotel rooms in Denver to movie theaters in New York, inventor Chris Goggin was having none of it. He designed a handheld bedbug detector that essentially works likes a dog's nose to literally sniff out the notoriously tiny and hard-to-find insects and their eggs.

Bedbugs don't carry any scary diseases, but the very concept of little bugs in your bed is just plain creepy and the bites can be itchy and irritating and prone to infection if not properly cleaned or treated, just like any other bug bite. All the more onerous is the fact that the creeps can normally be tricky to track down because they tend to hide in cracks and crevices, but Goggin's gadget leaves them nowhere to hide, instantly detecting their scent so you can toss your sheets in the drier to fry the little critters--or move to another county. … Read more

Someday, your car may be keeping an eye on your heart health.

Ford announced today it has developed a driver's seat that can monitor the occupant's heart function with the help of six embedded sensors on the backrest that detect "electrical impulses generated by the heart" without actually contacting the skin.

The technology was developed at the Ford European Research and Innovation Center in Aachen, Germany, with the help of researchers at the RWTH Aachen University.

Ford said it can envision sending data to "remote medical services" and providing "alerts of imminent cardiovascular issues such as a heart attack."

"As always in medicine, the earlier a condition is detected, the easier it is to treat, and this technology even has the potential to be instrumental in diagnosing conditions drivers were previously unaware they had," Dr. Achim Lindner, medical officer at the Ford research center, said in a statement.

Although not all companies are necessarily jumping on the health-and-wellness bandwagon, the use of driver assistance systems in vehicles is on the rise. Such systems deliver everything from assisted breaking to adaptive cruise control that speeds up or slows down the car based on road conditions. Regardless, they all have the same goal in mind as Ford's heart-monitor offering: improving safety.… Read more

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is pushing harder than ever for government leaders around the world to increase vaccination investments.

In a keynote address yesterday to the 64th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates spoke for nearly half an hour to health ministers from 193 countries about the importance of "seeking good health care for every human being."

"I believe we have the opportunity to make a new future in which global health is the cornerstone of global prosperity," he said.

Gates called on the assembly to make this "the Decade of Vaccines," with some basic goals: eradicate polio early in this decade; build a system capable of delivering vaccines to every child; make five or six new vaccines available to all children around the world. With these investments, Gates said, the world "can save 4 million lives by 2015 and 10 million lives by 2020."

Another challenge Gates cited was lowering the cost of antigenic materials, such as pentavalent, pneumococcus, and rotavirus vaccines. The Gates Foundation is working with vaccine manufacturers to cut prices of those inoculations in half by 2016. Lower costs would be beneficial to many countries around the world that are reeling from budget woes. … Read more

May is National Stroke Awareness month, and Boca Raton, Fla.-based NovaVision is using the occasion to trumpet a successful new therapy for partial vision loss due to stroke.

According to NovaVision's statistics, stroke is a primary cause of serious long-term disability and often causes partial blindness due to neurological trauma and visual field loss. For example, a stroke victim might retain general sight, but lose their peripheral vision or even the ability to see if he or she moves eyes to the left or right. Until now, according to NovaVision research, the opinion amongst most physicians stated such … Read more

Aim is important not just for billiards, sniper operations, and pitching. It's imperative for keeping men's rooms clean. "We aim to keep this bathroom clean; your aim will help" isn't just a pithy phrase to put on a placard above the urinals. It's a real problem. All kinds of factors affect where the stream settles: attention to detail, being considerate, and sobriety. That last one's kind of a pass, I suppose, but still.

The 21st century may not have provided us with the flying car yet, but the whizzes at White Rabbit Express are selling a surefire way to combat this pernicious problem. It's the Thermal Urinal Fly. This crafty little sticker (thanks, Japan!) is supposed to help prevent backsplash by giving prospective pee-ers a target to aim for. The best part is that since the sticker is temperature-sensitive (sort of like those Hypercolor shirts, except you pee on it), once the stream hits the fly, the heat makes it disappear. This is high technology at work, folks. … Read more

Smoking these days can be lonely business, what with smoking now banned in many bars and other traditional smokers' hangouts. But a new handheld device is designed to help smokers find each other--and it might even help them kick the habit.

Meet the "blu Smart Pack," the world's first social-networking cigarette package.

The rechargeable package--scheduled to go on sale in June for $80--connects wirelessly to social-networking sites and even flashes a blue light and vibrates if it detects other packages within 50 feet.

"You'll meet more people than ever, just because of the wow factor," Jason Healy, the company's founder, told The New York Times.

Not everyone's as convinced it's such a great idea. … Read more

Where exactly is the pituitary gland? You can find out with a new 3D body visualization site launched by Healthline Networks and GE Healthymagination that also works as a search engine.

The Healthline BodyMaps site lets users mouse over male or female bodies; rotate them in 360 degrees and click on various tissues and organs; and see various inner systems such as muscular, neurological, and skeletal.

For instance, the circulatory map includes a drop-down list of anatomical terms. Clicking on the heart leads to an enlarged image of the organ, from which you can click on its chambers and arteries to get relevant info.

You can also search for anatomical terms and read related articles on symptoms or treatments, as well as share info with friends. The site is the first of its kind available to all Internet users, according to the developers. Unlike Google Body, the site does not require WebGL. … Read more

It's hard to make a hearing aid sound cool, but it helps to refer to it as a "personal sound amplifier." Meet RCA's Symphonix RPSA10.

RCA isn't targeting the Big Band generation with the new device. It's geared more for younger buyers, some of whom, the company notes, may have damaged hearing from spending so much time hooked up to blasting headphones and exposed to booming car stereos.

RCA and its parent company Audiovox already make plenty of speakers and headphones and it's not a stretch to jump into the hearing aid realm … Read more