back to article Switch on your smartphone camera and look how fertile I am

I have cheerful sperm. This will come as a great relief to Register readers, I'm sure, but no doubt you're wondering: how do I know? Ah well, I have an app for that. Medical researchers at Harvard have developed an inexpensive smartphone attachment that measures male fertility. You can appreciate how facile it must be to …

  1. frank ly

    ".. I have no interest in childish double-entendres."

    You can't do it twice then? (That sounded a lot more funny immediately after I'd thought of it.)

  2. MrT

    ".. I have no interest in childish double-entendres."

    Come again...?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: ".. I have no interest in childish double-entendres."

      I have to hand it to you there with that toss away remark.

  3. TrumpSlurp the Troll

    DIY?

    Or did it require professional help?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Coat

      Re: DIY?

      come again?

  4. DropBear

    I must admit a device that is essentially a glorified microscope optics attachment for a smartphone is not exactly a new idea and has not been for the better part of a decade probably. I have a disruptive idea of my own though: mounting said smartphone into a sort of cheap goggle-like frame for your face to re-create a view-master-like 3D experience! This thing will rock and disrupt so hard!

    1. Alistair Dabbs

      >> glorified microscope

      I think the real work is in the proprietary software that analyses the sample for sperm count and movement.

    2. Adam 1

      > a device that is essentially a glorified microscope optics attachment for a smartphone is not exactly a new idea and has not been for the better part of a decade probably.

      Absolutely correct. Such an attachable microscope lens is definitely covered under prior art. There is, however, one novel part of this invention which you have missed but any of the highly trained USPTO officers​ could have recognised. This is not just any attachable microscope lens, but rather an attachable microscope lens on a mobile device. Don't beat yourself up though. Sometimes the novelty of an invention is hard for a lay person to recognise.

  5. TheProf
    Angel

    Disruptive

    Every PHB I ever had called me 'disruptive'.

    I once got described as 'acerbic'. Happiest day of my working life.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Disruptive

      There's your problem right there - it's only OK to be "disruptive" if you are a sociopathic, customer-exploiting, Ponzi-scheming, customer-screwing, VC-banging CEO. The job of the rest of us is to submit to being disrupted.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    excellent!

    sounds like the biz for my jizz

  7. Kiwi
    Coat

    I've often wondered.....

    enough of the innuendo

    Was it accident or deliberate that innuendo sounds like such a, well, innuendo.

    1. Anonymous C0ward

      Re: I've often wondered.....

      In your end-o.

      1. Kiwi

        Re: I've often wondered.....

        Exactly

  8. This post has been deleted by its author

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Disposable barbeques

    Given their popularity, surely there's room for a disposable cremation kit? B&Q DIY* funerals, for people who didn't read the instructions on the chainsaws.

    *Well, not obviously yourself, you get a relative or two to do it for you.

    1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

      Re: Disposable barbeques

      Nah, a spade, a roll of carpet and a bag of quicklime will do just fine.

      1. jMcPhee

        Re: Disposable barbeques

        That is a step up from newspapers and dustbin. We're way too big to flush.

        1. MrT

          Too big to flush...

          The Man Who Knew Too Little

          Hawkins: Spencer, did you flush?

          Wallace: I think she's going to do that. Don't you, pal? I'll ask her. Lori!

          Hawkins: [quietly to Daggenhurst] He's taking to her!

          Roger: She's still in the bowl?

          Hawkins: Maybe he tried to flush her, but she floated back up!

          Roger: Tell him to flush her! Spencer knows how to deal with floaters.

          1. Grunchy Silver badge

            Re: Too big to flush...

            Omg, you folks are not aware of the new green "Paris Agreement" chemical bio-cremation method?

            This one is practically built for the basement. All you need is a bit of alkaline hydrolysis, a flushing toilet, & 4 hours.

            The benefit is saving all that natural gas from the combustors and being converted into CO2 or whatever.

            This is a technology that evolved from the vet clinic to relieve us of our unwanted pet burden.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Boffin

        Re: Disposable barbeques

        "Nah, a spade, a roll of carpet and a bag of quicklime will do just fine."

        I thought quicklime (calcium oxide) tended to dessicate and hence preserve the corpse. Oscar Wilde was no chemist (but he apparently managed to fool at least one murderer into trying this, resulting in detection, conviction and execution - though what the murderer was buried in isn't stated.)

        1. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

          Re: Disposable barbeques

          If it's good enough for the BOFH, it's good enough for me.

      3. Montreal Sean

        Re: Disposable barbeques

        But spade and quicklime can't do double duty as long pork BBQ!

  10. Stevie

    Bah!

    " but in today's bat-shit crazy world, satire is not always obvious. "

    There was a Tomorrow's World gag show back in the late 70s in whch "dehydrated water pills" were demonstrated with a rather nice allotment-style tap-onna-wooden-stake prop.

    The next week it was reported that they'd had enquiries from interested companies about licensing the tecnology.

    1. Mark York 3 Silver badge
      Childcatcher

      Re: Bah!

      It was Magpie (Blue Peter clone on ITV), with Jennie Hanley wearing a lab coat & spectacles in the "lab photo".

      The joke concept was that it would change state back into water, on exposure to strong light.

      1. Stevie

        Re: Bah!

        It was TW I saw with me own eyeballs.

        Possibly a joke too good to use only once?

        1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: Bah!

          "Possibly a joke too good to use only once?"

          Almost certainly true. I don't remember the TW one, and most certainly not a Magpie one, being a Blue Peter watcher, but I also remember at least one April 1st report about shipping dehydrated water to drought-ridden areas.

          1. Calum Morrison

            Re: Bah!

            Back when I was a lad, I remember Philip Schofield demonstrating this amazing new type of personal stereo on Saturday Superstore or similar, where the music was all stored on these tiny little solid state black plastic chips. By way of demonstration, he showed how this weeny bit of plastic, the size of a small coin, could contain an entire album and played a bit of Guns N Roses' Appetite for destruction (that dates it to 1988 or so).

            I was amazed and totally sold on this awesome new technology and couldn't wait for it to replace the clunky tape players of the time. Then I realised it was April 1st and that this was clearly a joke. Well Phil, the joke's on you pal; I can fit an entire album on just such a 32Mb chip now (if I compress it to 96k) so who looks stupid today, eh???

            1. A K Stiles

              Re: Bah!

              Chippy! How fondly I remember thee!

  11. xeroks

    Escrow?

    Companies whose hardware requires internet services to work should, in the event the product is dumped, provide the code to the customer base.

    People would be more happy with buying a product if they had reassurances this would happen. It could be done via escrow if the company was concerned about giving away code while it was earning money.

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: Escrow?

      "Companies whose hardware requires internet services to work should, in the event the product is dumped, provide the code to the customer base."

      But who writes all their own code these days? There's very likely to be some licensed code in there that's incompatible with "giving it away for free", even if the company went bust.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Escrow?

      But what's the point, even if you provide the server code - if the client doesn't have the ability to change the server address then the code is useless.

      Also do you expect your nan to fire up a VM to host the server for her now bricked internet enable colander?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Gadgets will get bricked overnight"

    That's a direct- and foreseeable- consequence of gadgets being intentionally (mis-)designed to be reliant upon services provided by the manufacturer.

    Ask anyone who spent good money on a Revolv home automation system, only to see it rendered useless when the Google-owned Nest bought over the company and shut down the servers.

    There might be a legitimate reason for such design in some cases, but more and more it's being used purely and cynically to give the manufacturers control over their customers, the people who actually paid good money for it be damned.

    That said, it's long been obvious that people like me can rant about this all we like and Joe Public won't give a toss about our abstract concerns in the face of shiny marketing bulls**t- at least not until they get bitten on the ass or see it happening to someone else.

    So, yeah- the more people getting their fingers expensively- and prominently- burned by this sort of obnoxious design before it has a chance to become even more pervasive and unavoidable, the better as far as I'm concerned.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    There was recent article somewhere about a bag company who sell their own branded version of another supplier's commodity item. IIRC the commodity item was $30 - the identical quality one with the upmarket logo added - $700.

  14. Chris G

    Would you like to buy

    This lovely, only slightly used bridge?

    I know there are genuine innovators out there, who could use some financial help to get their ideas off the ground and into production. However, the Venture Capital and Kickstarter game seems to have become a breeding ground for bridge salesmen, luckily for them, there seems to be more than 'one born every minute' and they all seem to have money to invest.

    I would just like to add that I am currently looking for £2 million to finish developing my dog poo avoidance system, it uses a sniffer device built into the shoes, it detects doggy do from up to 2 mteres away and then using inertial guidance hardware it will steer your foot away from the offending scat.

    In the first instance send cash or bit coins.................

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Would you like to buy

      Dogs fouling pavements is almost non-existent in my part of the UK - since people started being fined. It doesn't stop some owners then hanging the neatly tied plastic bag from the branches of nearby bushes though.

      The ideal product to attract punters is a "guaranteed" way to deter cats from using your garden as a litter tray. Usually it is the people without any interest in gardening who own the cats that offend their neighbours. You see their hackles rise (the owners that is) if you mention you have any protective device installed.

      1. Terry 6 Silver badge

        Re: Would you like to buy

        Almost right. Cat owners know that the their moggies will cr*p in everyone else's garden, while protecting their own.

      2. tiggity Silver badge

        Re: Would you like to buy

        Ideal device for garden lovers is a mole deterrent that actually works.

        Your average "well 'ard" mole (in area with high mole density so needs to maintain a territory as "no room" to wander off elsewhere as that will be another moles area ) is barely inconvenienced by the ultrasonics, smelly chemicals etc. that people claim do the biz.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Would you like to buy

        Shotgnu.

    2. David Harper 1

      Re: Would you like to buy

      I refer the honourable gentleman to the article published by El Reg three weeks ago about the Dutch guys who programmed a drone to detect dog poo from its infra-red signature and direct a robot scooper-droid to collect the offending pile: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/03/29/drone_pooper_scooper/

  15. Michael Thibault

    'shopped image should tell you that the product is fiction

    'nuff said.

  16. doug_bostrom

    Remove "The Cloud" and voila: insoles work again.

    Of course this means Eloi will have to learn some Morlock ways, but surely it's better than ending up as dinner for innovators?

  17. Montreal Sean

    I told my wife about the fertility check device.

    She has decided it should be named:"The Jizz Whiz"

  18. Unicornpiss
    Happy

    Does the add-on module..

    ..have to recharge for a half hour between sessions?

  19. PickledAardvark

    "No Trojans"

    The discussion about orphaned technology reminded me of the Trojan car company of the early 20th century. Whilst almost every other manufacturer had moved on to water cooled engines at the front of the car, Trojan had an air cooled engine under the back of the car. And solid rubber tyres. Surprisingly, it was cheap to run, reliable and capable of navigating Britain's lousiest roads. Light commercial versions persisted for years after the car model manufacture ceased. Garage owners hated them and mechanics who would happily work on strange contraptions such as the Ford Model T displayed "No Trojans" signs.

    The other strange thing about Trojan is that the company took so long to go away. In the 1950s they assembled bubble cars and when the trend died out they made low volume Elva sports and racing cars. When Bruce McLaren and mates needed a partner to make sports racing cars (and a few single seaters) in the 1960s, they picked Trojan. The racing car business went well until Trojan accidentally became an F1 manufacturer (Cosworth DFV/Hewland kit car) in the 1970s. The company partly survived its disastrous F1 experience and died slowly; they had a lot of owners to support.

    Trojan was a disruptive company, aiming for niche markets and reinventing itself over 60 odd years. Isn't 60 months a long life for a technology firm today?

    ---smut spot --->

    Insert Trojan fertility joke here

    <--- ends ---

  20. ChaosFreak

    Right On, Man!

    I've "bought" three items on Indiegogo in the past three years:

    One was a kinect-like device that was supposed to allow you to control your computer with gestures. They were six-months late shipping. Their driver caused Windows to crash. Then they went out of business before they could fix the driver. I have an expensive paperweight.

    The second was a set of glasses that was supposed to help you fall asleep or recover from jetlag. They were over a year late shipping. The first one didn't work. They replaced it and this one "works" but doesn't do what they originally said it would do.

    The final one was a carbon fiber wallet. It is two years late shipping and still hasn't shipped.

    Indiegogo... it's like Amazon Prime but with three-year shipping!

    (PS - I know that Indiegogo isn't an online store and that I'm not "buying products", I'm "supporting projects". It's just that the fail rate is so incredibly high.)

  21. tiggity Silver badge

    Sperm fertility tester

    The tried and trusted test is to donate to as many ladies as possible as often as possible and see if any brats result, though long lag time on getting your results

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