'Big Toilet is watching you'

That's the headline at IDG Connect. Here's an excerpt.

You just went to the toilet and that triggered an automatic email informing you that your health insurance went up. Next you ask and receive a personalized doctor’s prescription, on your iPhone, to remedy whatever ailment is bothering you. Then you plug an appropriate device in your iPhone and monitor or evaluate your recovery. All historic data on your health is accessible by your doctor, your health insurer and most relevant, to you.

So just how far off is this future vision? Toto, short for Tōyō Tōki (Oriental Ceramics), is a Japanese toilet manufacturer that designed the Intelligence Toilet II. This toilet analyzes our excreta and records data like weight, BMI, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels. It even has a sample catcher in the bowl to obtain urine samples, which for instance can used to predict pregnancies. This information is then sent to your PC, showing your vital health stats.

It would be a simple effort to share this information with your doctor and even with your health insurer. Doctor’s could then evaluate online how you are doing, and track if you follow their advice or prescriptions. The diagnosis and subsequent recovery data is valuable for responsible patients, but the essence lies in health insurers capturing and tracking this data, as they do with car drivers. And just as prudent drivers are rewarded with lower car insurance, healthy people could pay less health coverage. And when you wish to avoid paying a higher premium, you could ask ‘Dr. App’ on your iPad to help out.

There's more at the link. Creepy, but interesting reading.

It sounds really weird to me, and highly invasive of my privacy . . . but a growing number of journalists and commentators are envisioning this sort of 'wired future'. I'll avoid it as long as I can, that's for sure!





Peter