Next: the pill bottle cap with a cell phone

Wed, 10/07/2009 - 1:14pm

(AP) -- IPhones aren't the only cutting-edge devices on AT&T Inc.'s wireless network. A startup is set to announce that it's making pill-bottle caps that use Ma Bell's network to remind you to take your medicine.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Vitality Inc. says the "smart" bottle caps will help solve one of the biggest problems in medicine: that people don't consistently take the drugs they're prescribed. That costs the U.S. $290 billion per year, according to a recent study by the New England Healthcare Institute.

The caps sense when they're opened, and can relay that information wirelessly to a base station in a home that looks like a night light. That station essentially has a cell phone in it. It can use AT&T's network to alert Vitality to place an automated phone call or send a text message reminding a patient to take a pill.

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