New Chinese mobile checks on your heart

Handset manufacturers are always trying to find the next big thing that will make their device look different to their competitors’, and I think that Qiao Xing Universal Telephone’s has succeeded in doing that. It’s built a cardiograph into a handset. That’s right, a handset with a cardiograph built-in.

The device can take a basic cardiograph and then transmit it over GPRS to a doctor who can text back medical advice. There’s a long standby time too, according to the company, at 120 days on one recharge.

There’s only a short run of the device to start with, at just 200 units, which are being supplied to The People’s Insurance Company to give them away as gifts to VIPs. Good on the handset maker for coming up with something genuinely different, but I’m wondering if giving someone a phone with a cardiogram is going to send out the right message to those VIPs…