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LG's battery-powered face mask will "make breathing effortless":
Big Tech is here to save us from COVID-19! With every responsible, compassionate person running around with a mask on nowadays, it seems inevitable that the phrase "wearable technology" will soon regularly include overly complicated high-tech face masks. One of the first major tech companies out of the gate with a questionably useful product is LG. The "LG PuriCare Wearable Air Purifier" is a battery-powered face mask that the company says will "supply fresh, clean air indoors and out."
[...] A HEPA filter can stop respiratory particles (so does a normal N95 mask), but LG's press release only says the mask will "take in clean, filtered air"—it doesn't say anything about filtering exhalations.
The mask is out it[sic] the fourth quarter in "select markets," but you should probably just wear a normal, lighter, cheaper, more comfortable mask. Please wear a mask.
Call me crazy, but I don't want lithium batteries that close to my face.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @08:22AM (2 children)
I want a portable hyperbaric chamber strapped to my face.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @09:17AM
Don’t be too proud of this technological terror they’ve constructed. The ability to shove air down my lungs is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
-Darth Vader
(Score: 5, Insightful) by choose another one on Friday August 28 2020, @12:54PM
It's called CPAP. Go out, get covid, it might happen...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @08:25AM (4 children)
Millions of people put lithium batteries next to their face. The odds of anything going wrong are less than getting struck by lightning.
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday August 28 2020, @08:43AM (1 child)
> Millions of people put lithium batteries next to their face. The odds of anything going wrong are less than getting struck by lightning.
The odds of it happening might be low, but the risks if does happen are high (stories of vapers getting chunks of their face blown off or burned by lithium explosions and fires come to mind). Cell phone batteries are relatively low capacity, in order to make the "slimmest, smallest" phone, and even they occasionally ignite while in someones pocket or next to their face.
This unit will most likely use the IMR26650 or similar lithium batteries, as they pack a good punch, and are already readily available as they are used for vapers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @12:42PM
Perhaps, but the risk of complications from covid-19 are much higher than that for the parts of the population that have a hard time breathing with a mask on. Wearing a mask with an extremely low rate of explosion is likely a risk worth taking for people with lung problems that don't have the option of just staying home.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday August 28 2020, @03:21PM (1 child)
Most people don't have their cellphone attached to their face. Even then, a lot of people use speaker phone, hands free talking in their car, or bluetooth headsets. The battery in a bluetooth headset is very small. The battery in something designed to pump air for 8 hours, isn't going to be tiny.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1) by fakefuck39 on Friday August 28 2020, @07:14PM
of course it will be tiny. an 18650 will pac 3ah. The fan would use under 1W. That's like 12 hours right there. you are vastly overestimating the power requirements of a tiny fan pulling just enough air to take a breath. I have a USB fan I plug into my 3ah phone. it's big enough to cool my whole face/neck/chest. It uses 2W. A fan in a mask can use 5x less power. This can run on the battery of airpods.
and btw, if you're so concerned about lithium fires and gas, one would figure you'd research it. those come from fast discharges where the battery heats and expands. Like a phone searching for signal, a laptop compiling, or a vape. So the opposite of a tiny drizzle that takes a day to drain the battery.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @08:51AM
I'd much rather use the homemade hack that a Chinese doctor produced. He wore a plastic bag over his head, a battery-powered HEPA filter on his hip, and a hose to connect them.
That allows easy speech, lip reading, and minimal weight on the head.
Commercial production could improve it. Instead of a fragile bag, a slightly stiffer plastic shell could be used. I'm thinking of the sort of plastic used for 2 L soda bottles. To prevent fogging and rebreathing of exhaled air, the fresh air could descend from the top and pass through a few spandex baffles that wrap around. One would between eyes and nose, and the other would be around the neck.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by leon_the_cat on Friday August 28 2020, @11:32AM (21 children)
Round here noone wears masks, its accepted that they do nothing both by science and by the general public.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Opportunist on Friday August 28 2020, @11:55AM (8 children)
Brazil or US? Where are you?
(Score: 2) by leon_the_cat on Friday August 28 2020, @11:59AM (6 children)
https://www.dailywire.com/news/swedens-top-epidemiologist-says-we-see-no-point-in-wearing-masks-as-covid-19-cases-drop [dailywire.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:19PM (1 child)
And with a trusted government response like they had, you know you can trust him!
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53498133#:~:text=Just%2045%25%20of%20Swedes%20now,the%20peak%20of%20the%20pandemic.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday August 30 2020, @11:26AM
I'd wait to see what happens in the rest of europe this autumn before bashing sweden's response.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Friday August 28 2020, @03:38PM (3 children)
I was going to call them whiners, but they have 17 more deaths per million population than the USA.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ [worldometers.info]
Deaths per million:
#1 San Marino (By a large margin, but they only have 32k citizens. Even worse, their Deaths per million population 1,237, is a crazy statistic. Actual deaths: 42.)
#2 Peru
#3 Belgium
#4 Andorra (Another very small nation, 77k citizens. Deaths per million population 686. Actual deaths: 53)
#5 Spain
#6 UK
#7 Italy
#8 Chile
#9 Sweden
#10 USA
Hey look, we made it to the top 10! Oh wait, we don't want to be high on this list . . .
World Average is 107.4 deaths per million. USA is at 559 deaths per million. The world average would be #56 on the list, if they counted it.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @08:06PM (2 children)
A whopping 17 more deaths per million?
So you're saying it's less than a statistical rounding error?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 29 2020, @04:37AM
More than the US.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday August 31 2020, @03:13PM
So, are you saying, there can be no confidence in the numbers? In that event, you may as well jump on whatever political bandwagon you feel like. Either people are being careful about recording the numbers or they aren't. I would guess a place like Sweden would have a lot more accurate numbers than a place like China.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @12:41AM
The US presidential campaigns and election? Yes. It's more obnoxious than hearing christmas music from October thru January.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:07PM
The US has a rich and storied history of quixotically trying to control nature with ritual going all the way back to Native American rain dances.
(Score: 5, Informative) by choose another one on Friday August 28 2020, @01:08PM (10 children)
Working out well - already 10 times the death rates of your neighbours and heading up towards that of Italy and the UK, the latter of which had far more international travel, far denser population and way higher prevalence of covid risk factors such as obesity.
Still, the Americas, north and south, are going to shove you (and maybe us) out of the top 10 soon.
And you get mixed saunas. Ok, maybe you did got it right. New Swedish tourist board tagline "Come to Sweden: sauna to die for."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:13PM (1 child)
Sweden's death rate isn't heading anywhere, it's flat. Meanwhile, how is Germany doing?
(Score: 2) by Opportunist on Tuesday September 01 2020, @12:52AM
About 1000 new cases per day (12 per million) with about 5 deaths per day (0.06 per million).
Sweden: About 170 new cases per day (17 per million) with about 1 death per day (0.1 per million).
Both pale in comparison to the US with 127 new cases per day and million and about 3 deaths per day and million, so don't you worry, neither can take your top-10 spot from you.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:23PM (4 children)
Isn't it weird how the places in the US with the worst lockdowns and high rates of mask compliance are also where all the deaths happened?
When is that wave of death supposed to arrive in Georgia anyway? Must have gotten stuck somewhere between there and New York.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @02:56PM
Here in Washington State, we've still got low rates, even though we had extreme lockdown by American standards. I don't know where you idiots get you're facts from, but it's a failure to lock down early enough and trying to reopen too quickly that are the real problems. Screw that up and you have to go extreme to try and undo the damage leading to they perception.
(Score: 2, Informative) by fakefuck39 on Friday August 28 2020, @07:24PM (2 children)
it's not weird in any way if you passed 5th grade math. Those places have more sun and much, much less population density, so they have lower rates. the worst places have a lot of people packed in a little space, so they have higher deaths. is that too complex for you?
Georgia you say? Ok, let's look at georgia. Let's look at Atlanta. Population 500k, density 3k/mi, 5000 deaths. Chicago - population 3mil, density 11k/mi, 8000 deaths. The example you just gave shows you're doing like10x worse than everyone else. Good job proving masks work.
More importantly, how dense do you have to be to pretend a piece of cloth that filters shit doesn't block a lot of the virus? You don't need observations for that. All you need is a saw and a piece of drywall, and a mask.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday August 30 2020, @11:31AM (1 child)
"Yeah too many people are packed in a little space, let's enforce a lockdown, but not a total one where the army gives you food in sanitized packages which actually might stop the virus from being trasmitted among households"
hmmmmm
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by fakefuck39 on Sunday August 30 2020, @10:46PM
I have a serious question for you. Do you have some kind of a mental illness where you can't comprehend basic English? Do people talk to you, it flies in one ear and out the other, then you hear voices in your head and argue with those voices? Have you even been in a situation where a guy goes "you parked in my reserved spot idiot" and you reply with "no, the reason fungus is not due to car exhaust - it grows because a vast network of underground spores surfaces after the rain" Has that happened?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:30PM (2 children)
Belgium has the highest per capita death rate globally. They've been on lockdown since March and are allowed to exercise for one hour a day. One person per family is allowed to go to the grocery store. The police are using drones to enforce social distancing. And they have the highest per capita deaths in the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @02:34PM
Nice try douchetard. Belgium is a made-up place [landoverbaptist.net], probably liberals who need somewhere to point to when saying somewhere is better than America.
(Score: 1) by fakefuck39 on Friday August 28 2020, @07:31PM
that's because you're comparing apples and oranges. by your method, china has zero deaths. belgium counts covid deaths differently - that's why you can't just throw their number on the same chart as the most of the eu.
they count cases where the death could be covid-related, even if no covid test was done. they also count every death - a lot of countries only count deaths in a hospital.
while still not completely accurate, a more appropriate way for comparing different measuring methods between countries is to look at deaths per capita - for any cause. and guess what - belgium is the same as the rest of the EU.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:21PM (2 children)
Seems like now that people don't have to breath on their own, the exercise rate in the US will only plummet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:32PM (1 child)
The only public health concern is covid, there is nothing healthier than staying inside all day. That's why gyms are still closed in North Carolina.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @02:38PM
All disease outbreaks are a hoax. There is no evidence that diseases happen and even if they did I don't believe it anyway. I like to virtue signal about not being able to go to the gym / not being able to eat out at Olive Garden / not being able to watch Fast & Furious 10 / not being able to sit in an office cube, even though I hate all of those things.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:23PM (5 children)
When will people realize that the drive to make everything "effortless" has been the cause of almost all of the first world's health problems ?
We got rid of almost all of the major killers of humanity: Polio, smallpox, cholera, malaria, infant mortality, famine, and yes, most bloody wars. And now the number one and number two killers of the first world are heart-disease and suicide.
We are fat and ugly. We live to be 90, but spend the last 30 years of our lives riddled with health problems, full of medication, with a miserable quality of life.
Maybe our ancesters lived only to be 60, but they did so while being able to axe-split their ten cords of wood until the day they died.
Stop eating shit, get off your lazy sorry asses and do something. Fucking "smart" lightbulbs. How hard is it to get off you couch twice a day and flip a fucking switch ? For fuck's sake.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @01:38PM (4 children)
But wouldn't you rather stay inside and watch Netflix instead? You can order McDonald's from Uber Eats, or maybe get an InstaCart delivery from Kroger with some frozen pizzas, and chill on the couch with some friends in a Google Meet. The important thing is you're saving lives, so that someday your grandparents can live to watch your children grow up to live a life even more empty and controlled by technocrats than yours.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 28 2020, @02:43PM (3 children)
When I was a kid growing up we played on the street. Now there are cars parked both sides.
We rode bikes and disappeared all day getting up to no good. Now kids have to be monitored by adults and entertained 24/7.
We smoked our first cigarettes and 13 and drank our first beer at 15, and pretended to like it. Now? The kids give blowjobs on the first date.
What's the world coming to?
(Score: 2) by KilroySmith on Friday August 28 2020, @05:17PM (2 children)
>>> Now? The kids give blowjobs on the first date.
Now you're making me wish I was young...
(Score: 2) by Unixnut on Friday August 28 2020, @10:10PM (1 child)
> Now you're making me wish I was young...
And making me wonder where I am going wrong...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 29 2020, @12:50AM
Here's an idea: 50 First Dates [imdb.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday August 28 2020, @06:41PM
I have a prototype developed at an advanced manufacturing laboratory by an additive manufacturing engineer, 3D-printed out of vinyl. It is so steampunk. If we're going to LARP in a stupid dystopia, I'm gonna play it to the hilt.
Now if only I could find decent post-apocalyptic goggles to go with it...
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 30 2020, @01:07AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powered_air-purifying_respirator. [wikipedia.org] Many woodworkers use these and it's essential with some wood dust that is toxic.