Stress levels at workplaces do tend to rise out of the roof at times, and this serves as a potential health risk to employees. To keep stress levels in check, a research group from the Tokyo Metropolitan University has come up with a little device that uses a pulse-wave sensor to show stress levels in real-time when hooked on to a computer via USB. The device measures blood flow in the fingertip with an infrared reflective probe and analyzes the variation enabling stress levels to be measured by simply placing your fingertip on the sensor for about 10 seconds. The team also had the device integrated in a mouse, allowing readings to be taken while users go about their day-to-day computing.

[Diginfo]