The Attack of the Killer iPods

Cell phones might give you cancer, and BlackBerrys interfere with speakers. So, what can the humble iPod do? A 17 year old high school student has discovered that iPods can cause pacemakers to malfunction. Granted, the demographic most likely to need a pacemaker isn't exactly Apple's target market, but with 100 million iPods sold as of April, what are the chances that someone with an iPod is strolling by an elderly person with a pacemaker?

The student Jay Thaker found in a study of 83 elderly patients that an iPod could cause telemetry interference in 29% of patients, cause a pacemaker to misread the heart's function in 20% of patients, or even stop a pacemaker in one patient from up to 18 inches away. In each case, an iPod was placed next to a patient's chest for five to ten seconds.

Time to ban iPods?

Labels: Technology