Last night a phone shoe saved my life…
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 by Jo
Now here’s a new way to use a phone – with your feet. Aussie inventor, Dr. Paul Gardner-Stephen has created a phone that sits in the heel of one of your shoes. So instead of fumbling around to find your phone in your bag, just slip off your shoe and flip the heel. Dr. Paul is frequently seen around his campus in Flinders University, Adalaide doing just that. And the phone has proved so popular that Dr. Paul is thinking of starting selling them online this year.
As soon as you attach a Bluetooth headset, it’ll be a whole lot more viable and a great place to hide a phone from thieves!
But apart from being a cool accessory, Dr Gardner-Stephen’s thought of how it can be used for the good of humankind. He is confident that his phone in a shoe (I’m sure there’ll be a nice catchy name soon – perhaps a “shone” or a “phoo”?), could be used to monitor patients’ vital stats such as blood pressure and pulse via a bluetooth device which will sit in the other heel. The info can then be automatically sent through to doctors wiithout the patients having to come into hospital.
It will also be used to tell emergency workers when a patient has had a fall by monitoring shocks and orientation changes. The shoe will then automatically call emergency services and put the whole conversation on speakerphone so that the patient can communicate when they’re in trouble.
So why house this genius idea in a shoe?
“Shoes are well accepted by most people, and are simple to put on and take off.”
But that’s not all of it…they’re also ideal for charging the device as “our feet, and therefore our shoes, conduct large forces as we stand and walk, and energy can be harvested to charge the device during ordinary activity.”
So it can all be recharged by walking or even standing still – now that’s my kind of gadget!
Check out the doctor’s demo:
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