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Would you buy a phone that could alert you to swine flu outbreaks as it happens? The experiment brought to light by the Japan Times in early June 2009 is a new initiative being launched by the Japanese Government in conjunction with a phone carrier, possibly Softbank, this coming fall.

Apparently the idea was discussed before the current pandemic of swine flu. The plan is to choose a school with approximately 1,000 students and give them iPhones, track the students whereabouts and store the information on a central server. Then a handful of students will be hypothetically ¨infected¨ with a virus. The phones will go on to track the whereabouts of all the infected people, see who they have come in contact with and prevent further infections using this information.

Currently there are 2,033 Japanese infected with the swine flu, an infection that swelled from 3 cases from a Japanese teacher and her students on a trip to North America in May, to 1,000 infections in June 2009.

With technology being able to help us in our daily lives, why not rely on mobile phones to track and detect the contamination of viruses, even help advise those infected with a text to see the doctor?

On the other hand, privacy would be sacrificed as the system relies on having your GPS location at all times to see whose path you may have crossed.

How will the infected be warned and treated? It opens the door to discrimination if some suspect you have been infected even before having been tested.

The pitch isn’t purely for the benefit of the community either, as Softbank has seen the market saturated with smartphones, so the benefit of having a device that can warn you of potential viruses is a possible money spinner for Softbank.

Would you subscribe tp a phone service that offers health and medical alerts concerning those around you? Can this potentially be used in other densely populated countries?

Guest post by ZIA from ScienceBlogJapan


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interesting, now what would be the price.. :O

This is an interesting idea.

phanxuanna12297 said: i need one of those >.<

i second that^^

i need one of those >.<

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