Best High-Tech Toilet?

shellac writes "For a number of years now, Japan has had incredibly high-tech toilets, complete with a funky electronic control panel that controls a water jet for cleaning the posterior, a hot air blow dryer, a fake flushing sound to cover up those noisy "Dumb & Dumber" style sessions, a seat warmer, and other nice features, not to mention the occasional amusing gaijin encounter. Prototype models can also chemically analyze urine using lasers. The manufacturer, Toto, has made these available in the US and in other countries, but they have failed to largely fulfill their promised potential, despite their popularity in Japan. There is some evidence Kohler toilets is keeping these out of American markets. The toilets also appear to be a victim of poor marketing on Toto's part, which in all fairness may be due to Western advertising taboos that do not exist in Japan. I know I would love to have one of these, and I suspect many others would as well. What does that /. community think of these toilets? Can anyone post a personal review?"

hehe...

[Datasage]

As long as thy have nothing to do with the three seashells

I'll buy one if....

[pjdepasq]

I'll buy one if they let me hook it to my LAN, and have a panel with Mozilla built into it. Then I can read /. while I'm in there!

Analyze Urine?

[e1en0r]

At Matsushita's research center in Tokyo, scientists explain how they are working on embedding technology in the porcelain that will catch a urine sample, shoot it full of lasers and in short order test it for glucose, kidney disease and eventually even cancer. One of the researchers, Tatsuro Kawamura, says future smart toilets will compile and compare medical results day by day, allowing doctors to spot important changes.

I'd be interested in hearing more about this. Will it store the information locally or be hooked up to a network? How will it know who's using the toilet? Who's to say they won't test for drugs or something in the future? This could get pretty invasive.

Re:What is the use of a high tech toilet?

[JabberWokky]

Don't forget Japan is also the nation of porn comic books

Like [cherrycomics.com] America [toonopedia.com] is [heavymetal.com] not? [spectator.net].

--
Evna

Please

[Bnonn]

Come on people. It's a toilet. Is there such thing as having too much money, do you think, or is that blasphemy in our modern, apathetic and greed-based society? I understand that there are some instances where this would be genuinely useful (for example, the poster who mentioned living in freezing conditions, where the warmer was really helpful), but for the most part, isn't this perhaps just a good example of how lazy people in "civilised" countries are becoming? Once neural interfaces for typing become commonplace, all that's left to invent is a device to breathe and eat for you.

Yeah, mod me down for being cynical about our great society and thinking this kind of money could actually be put to use in places it's really needed. Sorry for not being a narcissist.

Just when you thought Slashdot hit bottom...

[Bowie J. Poag]

Incase you missed it, here's the whole Ask Slashdot article summed up in two lines:

"Dear Slashdot....I enjoy jets of water shot at my anus, and i'm willing to pay the big bucks for it!! Any suggestions?"

Think about the sum total of what you've just read, then maybe it will hit you. Slashdot certainly isnt what it used to be, is it....And you thought Yahoo Internet Life was bad? Welcome to the new Slashdot, folks -- What once was the proud sentinel of geekdom has been reduced to running stories on toilets. Sure smacks of "stuff that matters" to me, I tell ya. Anyway, before you go off and moderate me down for being off-topic or trollsome, ask yourself this: How many other articles were rejected (re: meaningful, important articles, peoples work, interesting points of view, etc.) so that this story could make it in? On Easter, of all days. Simply charming.

Surprisingly, i'm not trying to troll here. I'm trying to make a point. Just a day or two ago, I had written to Ask Slashdot regarding the issue of Linux on the desktop, and whether it was truly fair to call it "dead", when infact viable, stable, professional-quality desktops are available for Linux. HP certainly doesnt think the Linux desktop is dead -- They bundle GNOME with HP-UX. IBM isn't crazy either; They bundle both KDE -and- GNOME in AIX... So whats all the hub-bub about Linux being dead on the desktop? But, nope, we cant discuss that.....Not here on Slashdot. There are more important things to address in a public forum such as this..

Like how to have jets of water shoot at our anuses.

Cheers,

Re:Well...

[Lupin3]

Well how come whenever you come out of the bathroom at home I've gotta out a whole can of Ozium? Your loads reek, dude.

The difference between cleaning and smearing

[tsmoke]

We've had these for over 10 years. It drove my parents closer to divorce than anything else, but eventually my mother learned to love it too. In a phrase, this thing is the difference between cleaning and smearing.

For many years, the only one we had was in our home in California in my parents' bathroom. I would tell people about it reverentially, and they all thought I was exagerrating my love for it.

Whenever I would come home, the only toilet I would use is this one. One time, I came out of the toilet room and said to my dad, "That toilet is the best thing in the world."

He replied, "I know."

If you're going to move your bowels once or twice a day, being able to clean and wash effectively is not something to (excuse the pun) laugh at. There are serious health benefits, not to mention it simply feels better to have a clean ass than to spend the rest of the day walking around with pooh chunks smeared throughout your tuchus.