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Innovation

Scales that tweet your weight

Would sharing your weight on Twitter motivate you to shed pounds? French company Withings thinks it will.
Written by John Dodge, Contributor

You read that right. Now there's scales that will tweet your poundage if you care to share. Bear in mind, the trend line might not be pretty over the holidays.

Yes, such a technological marvel exists and even more astounding, some people are using the scales to tweet their weight.

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Withings WiFi Body Scale credit:Twitter

The WiFI Body Scales were introduced  in September by a French company called Withings. The WiFi Body Scales "automatically records the user’s body weight, lean & fat mass, and calculated body mass index (BMI) to his/her secure webpage and/or free Withings iPhone application, WiScale," according to Withings.

In November, Withings added the Twitter functionality to "keep users motivated." Once a day, the scales will send your weigh-in data to your Twitter followers....or an iPhone if you prefer.

Indeed, one person who's tweeting his weight is well-known venture capitalist and Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe. His daily tweets appear like this:

"My weight: 223.3 lb. 44.7 lb to go. Goal is 179, as in 1979. http://withings.com"

Metcalfe's weighty tweets were featured in the Boston Globe earlier this week when columnist Scott Kirsner wrote about this unusual social networking medium. Thanks for sharing, Bob (he always was a cutting edge kind of guy!).

Withings claims the scales are accurate within 100 grams. If you have someone who's impossible to shop for and is a TMI kind of person, consider the WiFi Body Scales. They're on Amazon for $159 with a solid five-star user rating. One review is headlined "Imagine if Apple Designed a Bathroom Scale..."

Follow me on Twitter (although I will not be posting my weight!)

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com

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