11/04/2007

Meet your new personal trainer: your cell phone

It can take your pulse, check your body fat, time your jogs and tell you if you have bad breath. It even assesses stress levels and inspires you with a pep talk. The prototype Wellness mobile phone from Japan's NTT DoCoMo Inc. targets users with busy lives who want a hassle-free way of keeping track of their health. The phone, developed with Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and unveiled recently at the CEATEC electronics show outside Tokyo, has a built-in motion sensor that detects body movement and calculates calories burned, whether you're walking, running, climbing stairs or resting.

DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile phone carrier, has yet to set a release date or price for the Wellness phone and has no immediate plans to sell it overseas. Like a sensor system that Nike Inc. and Apple Inc. developed for the iPod Nano, the handset also keeps track of runs, letting users set targets and record time, distance and calories burned — while listening to music through headphones.

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