FDA OKs St. Jude wireless implant: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted St. Jude Medical approval for its its Accent RF pacemaker and Anthem RF CRT-P, which feature secure, wireless transmission of data that the clinician or a home monitor can track. St. Jude claims its system is unique as an "integrated system of pacing devices with wireless telemetry from implant through follow-up." More

Aurora gets asset tracker: Aurora Health Care has tapped Patient Care Technology Systems (PCTS), a subsidiary of Consulier Engineering, to deploy its Amelior Tracker system throughout its St. Luke's Medical Center campus. The Amelior tracker will be used to automatically track and manage over 3100 hospital assets throughout their 538-bed, 1.65 million square foot center. As part of the deal Aurora will integrate a Real-time Location System (RTLS) from Skytron, powered by Awarepoint to provide location data capture to the Amelior Tracker end-user software. More

New gadget sure to improve the mental health of dogs: A gadget called Bowlingual Voice, developed by Japanese toymaker Takara Tomy, claims to detect six different emotions from a dog's bark. The emotions it claims to recognize include sadness, joy and frustration along with some spoken phrases like "play with me". The system includes a wireless microphone that is fitted around the dog's neck and a handheld device for the owner to use to determine a translation. More