Are iPods Bad for Pacemakers? (AAPL)

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

CNET news is running a story that was also briefly noted on CNBC this morning: Apple’s (AAPL-NASDAQ) iPods can cause interference with the electromagnetic equipment inside pacemakers.  Now before you go taking away grandpa’s iPod loades with Kiss and Jimmy Hendrix, you should know that the study was conducted and the data presented by a 17-year old high school student.  That doesn’t mean it can’t be true, but this proves just how much “user generated news and testing” is flattening news and information in the world.

You can read the full story here to determine how much credibility, and relevance, you give this.  Also keep in mind that the percentage of iPod owners that are also people with pacemakers is probably a much lower percentage of total iPod owners.  It might have just been playing Twisted Sister for grandpa that started causing the interference.  This is just downright weird.

Jon C. Ogg
May 11, 2007

Jon Ogg can be reached at [email protected]; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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