It used to be that when you wanted to improve your posture, you would put a large hardbound book on your cranium and practice walking with it. Just one of the many things I learned from old TV shows. Thank you magic moving picture box. Your parents can do the same thing by telling you to stand up straight, but you may not live with them any longer and need some reminding before you turn into Quasimodo.

The iPosture is a small device that can be clipped onto clothing or stuck to the skin. When it senses that you aren’t sitting or standing with a straight back, it wll nag you through vibration until you straighten up. After a while, proper posture should be second nature to you.

The Asus Pulse Sensing Mouse does just what it sounds like it does. It measures your pulse as you work away at your computer. Then it sends the information wirelessly to software running on your PC that keeps track of your heart rate.

It might be interesting to see what gets you stressed while on your computer. Heart patients would find it very useful. Other then that if you’re a hypochondriac, I guess you could monitor your heart rate while you surf porn. You know, just to make sure you don’t overdo it. Safety first.

It’s that time of the week again, which means a look back at the week that was in our network of blogs. It’s been a busy week all around and as usual Poptherapy kept you abreast on all the latest geek news and popculture, while over at Wealthyreader it was all about ways to get wealthy or stay wealthy. Our health blog, Healthyreader focused on ways to stay healthy and enjoy it all. Health, wealth and geekiness is a great combination. Here’s some of what you may have missed.

Oxygen bars are nothing new, and are designed to increase your health, but in Japan they have once again upped the ante with IV drip cafes. Tenteki10 is located in Ebisu, Tokyo, and offers customers a walk-in service where they can get IV drips starting at $20. The service is said to provide a skin care boost, while acting as an anti-aging remedy and alleviating stress and exhaustion. Big claims. Somehow I doubt it.

IVs are administered by on-site nurses, so Japanese men will no longer have to go to the hospital to hit on them. Great for those freaky medical fetish types too, I guess. How much you want to bet they start serving caffeine via IV at this place as well?

The Overall Health Balance Scale from Japan’s National Electric takes fitness feedback to a new level. The device hasn’t been released yet, and that may be due to the fact that it makes women look silly. Judging by the images, women have to pretend that they are piloting a plane while standing up. At the same time, it will help you avoid obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

It seemingly measures everything from weight and BMI, the amount of fat under your skin, organ fat, how muscular you are, and your metabolic rate. It takes all of the readings, then tells you how out of shape you are for your age on a scale of 1 to 5. If you want, put the sensor over your huge ass and see just how much junk is really in your trunk.

First of all, this thing looks like it needs a Hello Kitty face on it. It’s basically a pink and white torpedo for women to lay on top of and get touched inappropriately by it’s robot innards. Since it’s a robot, it won’t have to worry about sexual harassment. It’s got wheels too, so once you get your wife good and relaxed, you can just wheel her wherever the hell you want and go play the Wii.

It’s ridiculously expensive at $13,500, but what the hell, it’s got a huge pink visor and a touchscreen. It also “automatically adapts its speed and pressure to the body part it’s massaging,” and since you are laying out all that dough, they give you a built-in audio system too. If you ask me it looks like a futuristic hospital bed that’s only going to fit women on the very thin end of the scale. I guess the moral of the story is to quit eating three square meals at Mickey D’s for a month and only then will you be privileged enough to get a robot massage.

There’s no shortage of interesting and unique alarm clocks that serve as alternatives to the usual, but this may be the most gentle way they have come up with to wake you up. It could also make you look very creepy to your partner. It was designed by Ian Walton and Eoin McNally, who wanted to create a product that could help combat the rigors of a “24 hour” lifestyle.

A grid of LEDs begins to glow about 40 minutes before it’s officially time to wake you up. That way, a slow and gentle increase in light will bring you out of sleep more naturally. It may even stop your traditional bitching and moaning against the pillow. The glo Pillow is just a prototype, but it did pick up one of Time Magazine’s Best Inventions of 2007 awards, so there’s hope.

RESPeRATE is an interactive breathing device that helps you control your blood pressure by lowering it to safe levels. It’s bio-feedback for breath control. No, you don’t need a mint. The idea is that if you are breathing properly your BP will go down. But not when you make the initial purchase at a price of $290. So from there it would have to go.

The device will automatically analyze your breathing pattern and create a personal melody for you, composed of two distinct inhale and exhale guiding tones, delivered through the earphones. Just listen to the melody and synchronize your breathing to the tones. By prolonging the exhalation tone it helps you slow your breathing and reach the “therapeutic zone” of less than 10 breaths per minute. So what does that do exactly? They say that the muscles around small blood vessels in your body will relax.

Everybody gets stressed. It’s the nature of our fast paced civilization. The StressEraser wants to help. So just calm down, find your zen place and read on. Ahhh, that’s better. Deep breaths. The device claims to be an an award winning biofeedback medical device. It’s designed to calm your mind and relax your body in under 15 minutes. The idea is to focus your mind and guide your breathing by synchronizing it with a “calming” BreathWave patten. Daily 15 minute nighttime sessions have to be done before sleep to calm your nerves.

Stay in your special spot. We’re almost finished. Picture yourself gently gliding through clouds. Your deep regular breaths are your propulsion…Holy crap! That jet almost rammed you. That couldn’t have helped your nerves any. Back to the StressEraser. It can also be used during the day if you’re feeling stressed. Measuring 3.75″ x 2.5″ x 0.6″, the device is designed to be carried around. I’ll hope you’re still calm, because the price tag is $299.

The idea behind this tablet/pda device is not to lure the elderly into gaming with a cute device full of pretty icons.(though I’m sure that would work) It’s to track every movement the elderly make. Not because we fear them…they’re old. It’s because Nokia believes this is the best way to keep them around longer.

By monitoring what they consume via RFID tags; from expired foods, medicine, possible allergens and nutritional info. It could probably even tell you if they have been putting toys in their mouths while watching Matlock, like babies do. It’s easy to read and use and that’s the key. This pad hopes to be a vital tool for the upcoming explosion of elderly Baby Boomers.(Which is bound to be a mess. Baby Boomers explode with twice the power of your typical spontaneous combustion.)

The pink angel of the apocalypse is at it again, still bent on world domination and bending young women to it’s will. But I have to say, if Hello Kitty is trying to win me over with the above pic, I’m nearly there, dorky belt and all. That’s because at first glance this device seems to rid well shaped women of their clothes, put a pink Wiimote in their hand and give her protective padding for the workout I have in mind. I’m obviously under the Kitty’s influence, so let’s move on.

This is the Hello Kitty Slender Shaper and claims to burn off fat from your midsection with a shaking action. And, as mentioned, comes with a Wiimote of sorts, so you can shake your groove thing faster or slower with just the push of a button. The entire package, with carrying case will cost about $127.52.

It’s nice to see video game companies getting more into fitness, since they are responsible for much of the lard on couches across America. Ubisoft just announced a new title that should be available this summer called My Weight Loss Coach. The game is targeted at both casual and overweight players. The idea is to use customizable coaching sessions and a pedometer accessory to track physical activity.

The pedometer can be synced to the DS, and will help you keep track of daily physical effort, but it also goes a step further, helping you balance your food intake.

You work in an area, like a hospital, where contagious germs abound. Or, you are simply very germ phobic. Either way you probably wouldn’t mind getting your gloved hands on a computer keyboard which is dishwasher safe. Meet the Silver Seal from Seal Shield, announced first last year and now available.

The Silver Seal keyboard is, according to Seal Shield, fully submersible, dishwasher safe and manufactured from special plastic. This plastic is antimicrobial, using “all natural” pure silver ions embedded in it to ward off germs. Silver is described as a “natural antibacterial product” – hence why it has been incorporated into the plastic.

People hate stepping on their scale and having it tell them the honest to god facts about their weight. Women especially hate the evils of the scale. Well folks, this new device isn’t going to improve the scale’s image any.

I personally have never had any problem with the simple act of stepping on a scale and looking down at the numbers, but I can see how that might be a problem for some people, whether they are just cringing at the numbers or just can’t see past their enormous girth. I can only presume that this device is geared toward the latter. With this scale, you won’t have to try to circumvent your huge gut to get a look at the numbers. You can just read your weight by looking straight ahead at a remote.

A recent study conducted by the FDA showed that contrary to previous reported studies involving iPod media players and cardiac pacemakers, Apple’s iPod players do not affect the heart beat regulators. We brought you news on a study of iPods and pacemakers last May by a high school student (along with help from local cardiologists) showing that 50% of the subjects studied showed interference in their pacemaker while holding an iPod within two inches for 5-10 seconds.

The recent study by the FDA was published Friday on BioMedical Engineering Online with tests concluding that the iPods did not produce enough of an electromagnetic field to cause any interference with a pacemaker. The study used four different models of the iPod: an iPod Shuffle, iPod nano, iPod with video and a fourth generation iPod. When the iPods were held a distance of 10 mm from a 3-coil sensor a peak strength of only 0.2 millionth of a Tesla was detected. This value would need to be hundreds of times larger to cause interference with a pacemaker, according to the study.