A cell phone that lets ladies know if they're running a higher-than-normal chance of getting pregnant is the latest idea from Samsung. The Korean electronics giant has filed a patent with the US Patent & Trademark Office for a "portable device for user's basal body temperature (BBT) and method for operating the device."
An ultrasonic or laser-based distance sensor, and an infrared ray temperature sensor installed around the speaker of the phone measures the distance of the phone to your ear and the temperature inside your eardrum. Then, software inside the phone processes the measurements and transforms them into BBT records, before recommending that, yes, you can have hot, crazy rumpo with no consequences, or yes, you've got a chance of making Junior if you get busy tonight.
It's not a bad idea, given that a lot of women would rather lose a leg than be separated from their mobile, but how are Samsung going to market this? Presumably not, as we have, as a safe-sex phone, as it's won't protect from STDs.
Here's a bit of the patent application, but be warned that the word menstruation is used repeatedly in it.
[0089] Referring to FIGS. 2 and 7, as shown in FIG. 7, the information control unit 218 may display the user's generated menstruation information, e.g. fertile period information, on the display unit 219 of the portable device, i.e. on a screen of the portable device in a form of a calendar. Also, the information control unit 218 may display a graph 720 in which the user's menstruation information is indicated in each color. In the graph 720, a black interval 711 indicates a menstruation period, a green interval 712 indicates an infertile period, a yellow interval 713 indicates a pregnancy possibility period, and a red interval 714 indicates a fertile period.
Also, when the menstruation starting day is not inputted by the user, the information control unit 218 may provide the user with an alarm to induce the user to check for pregnancy.
