Do You Know Where Your Keyboard Has Been?

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2054

Not too long ago I wrote about a breakthrough that scientists have had in killing a methicilin-resistant strain of the Staph bacteria with UV light.  In a gross bit of news, I learned about this little fella below:

e-coli

Do you know what that nasty looking bug is above?  It’s a bacteria in the Coliform family.  Do you know where Coliform bacteria is found?  It’s most commonly found in feces.  You know, feces?  Poop?  Well, I have some news…  apparently it’s also been found on some computer keyboards in public areas, like hospitals, common areas, computer labs, and other keyboard-sharing places.  That’s almost as nasty as the bacteria count on lemon slices found in restaurants that are used in your drinks – and that bowl of lemons that’s always located by the soda fountain in places like Chipotle.  Next time you use a keyboard in a public place, will that be on your mind?

It’s been on the mind of a company called Vioguard – they’ve produced a product that combats the spread of such little nasties like the one above in hospitals – a place where having dirty hands because of a filthy keyboard could lead to a person’s death.  With an estimated 500-1000 keyboards in public areas in a large hospital, you can imagine the possibility of infection – someone uses the restroom, “forgets” to wash their hands, goes back to their computer station, maybe picks something out of their teeth…

…and the nasty story goes on.

brochure_open

Vioguard’s product is a keyboard that retracts into an enclosure that bathes the keyboard in Class C UV light – a well-known germicidal “agent.”  The keyboard gets sanitized, and when you need it, you wave a hand in front of an IR sensor which pops it out – limiting the amount of times you have to physically touch it.  This is a great thing for hospitals, doctors’ offices, dentists’ offices, medical folk in general who have to touch people.  Check out the video below:

The pricepoint that was initially quoted was between $499 and $599, but the creator, an ex-Microsoft hardware engineering director, says that the price should come down over time.  I bet I know some people who could benefit from having one of these in their home…

nasty_keyboard

Thanks, TechFlash and Vioguard!

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2 COMMENTS

  1. Jim, I have to say, thinking about this gives me the willies — I know they say there are germs everywhere, but I prefer to be blissfully ignorance (as I slather on the antibacterial gel 🙂

    • Ha!

      You know, I used to use the community lemons in restaurants until I heard that other tidbit… it ruined lemons in restaurants for me!

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