Could Wello help speed up Ebola screening?
Remember Glenn Beck? The conservative fruitcake found fame a few years ago with his show on America’s Fox News Channel when the passionate commentator would use everything from blackboard diagrams to crying on screen to demonstrate the liberal conspiracy in America.
It turns out Beck wasn’t just disappeared in the night by liberal muslim atheists, but he has in fact got a show on The Blaze, a network he founded himself.
On his show yesterday, which appears to be a cross between ITV’s This Morning and a survivalist bunker, Beck spoke to the CEO of Wello, which has developed a device known as the “WelloStation” which can – so it claims – detect your body’s temperature without poking around inside you.
Instead, it makes the measurements by analysing your face through a camera. The idea is that aeroplane passengers or school kids can identify themselves on the device using either facial recognition or a swipe-card, and then the system will scan their face – making an estimate on the temperature.
We’re not scientifically literate to tell if this is all plausible (can any scientists enlighten us in the comments?) – but if it is legit, it seems like it could be useful in the fight against Ebola – which is going to require thousands of people at airports and the like to get checked out.
