Believe it or not, we've seen something like this before -- out of Japan, naturally -- so we're a bit surprised to see a patent app roll in from Samsung for a phone capable of tracking a woman's fertile periods. The idea is to keep the user updated on her "baby" and "no baby" times of the month when she places a call by measuring distance to the eardrum (using either ultrasonic or laser sensors) combined with infrared to get a temperature reading. This corresponds to a woman's basal body temperature cycle, which in turn maps to her menstrual cycle. In Japan, the concept was intended to boost birth rates by keeping couples in the know on exactly when they might have success -- but elsewhere we imagine the intent might be just the opposite. We'll leave it to our readers' active imaginations to decide just when and how the user should be kept abreast of said information.

[Via Unwired View]

As much as we love to integrate superfluous technology into our everyday doings, we've gotta say that this new "Baby Boom" fertility wristwatch from techno-watch extraordinaire Laks has us just a little bit creeped out. Maybe it's the concept of a cold little digital device helping out with tracking fertile days, pregnancy weeks and finding baby names, or the fact that the watches look decidedly man-ish, but whatever it is, Laks seems to have packed in some hefty fertility-centric capabilities -- and we're just not sure how we feel about that. Anyways, we're guessing the black and grey watch is a sort of "him and hers" setup, since they're sold in a two pack for 149 Euro ($189 US), while a single watch goes for 90 Euro ($114 US). They should be shipping now.