Growing Fears Of Coronavirus

As the coronavirus continues to infect more and more people, the fear is continuing to grow.

Today, Apple announced that the outbreak will imagine their sales. 

And I read yesterday that airlines, even Israeli El Al, is warning of the impact. 

But how you know that the people, as individuals, are getting seriously worried are by the level of precautions they are starting to take.

These include: canceling travel arrangements, wearing (antiviral) face masks and latex gloves, and ever more frequent hand-washing and use of hand sanitizers. 

The picture here shows a couple of ladies waiting on line for some gelato at the airport, and they have masks over their faces and this is in the Holy Land, and not even where the outbreak is in China!

I hear official figures of 70,000+ infected and 1,800 dead, but on the street people are saying these are grossly understated. 

Let us pray that this virus is brought speedily under control, that a cure is found, and that no more people are sickened or killed by it. 

(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Superhero Work Gloves

Just thought these were some really cool work gloves. 

“Ironclad Industrial Impact–Rigger Cut”

These were just hanging around the local clothing store. 

They not only look like superhero gloves covered in orange, yellow, and black duraclad padding ready to WHAM BAM!

But they also feel that way when you put them on with all the rubberized ruggedized protection.

Hmm, wonder whether these would be good in the gym for weightlifting…

Now who actually goes to work wearing these things? Its probably got to be a pretty “macho” man or women job.  😉

(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)

Sign Language That Really Talks

There are over 40 million deaf or hearing disabled people in the world.

Many of these people suffer from not being understood by others and feel isolated. 

Four Ukranian graduate students have created the answer for them called Enable Talk–these gloves translate sign langauge into sound. 

The gloves have sensors including compass, gyroscope, and accelerometer that captures the wearer’s sign language. This is then transmitted via Bluetooth to an smartphone app that matches the sign pattens to those stored (and which can also be programmed/customized) and translates it into words and sounds. 

Enable Talk gloves won the Microsoft Imagine Cup 2012 student technology competition, and was named as one of Time Magazine’s Top 25 Best Innovations of 2012. 

For $175 these gloves are an amazing value for the hearing impaired who just wants to be communicate and be understood by others. 

This is a great advance for the disabled, and I’d like to see the next iteration where the gloves have the translation and voice mechanism and speakers built in, so the smartphone and app isn’t even needed any longer–then the communication is all in the gloves–simple, clean, and convenient! 😉