8 ms·
The Tampon of the Future
- hackuser 11y agoWhy don't we hear - on HN or in the startup world - talk of disrupting this industry?
- shirro 11y agoI don't know about disrupting the technology but there looks to be a lot of room to do things with distribution and product differentiation. Here is an Aussie startup http://tomorganic.com.au/ http://tomorganic.com.au/
- Kristine1975 11y agoIf you mean the tampon industry: It already has been disrupted: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menstrual_cup
- e40 11y agoI love this bit: Menstrual cups are safe when used as directed and no health risks related to their use have been found. However, no medical research was conducted to ensure that menstrual cups were safe prior to introduction on the market. Ah, the old assumption of safety.
- nostrademons 11y agoKinda like how saccharine was discovered because a chemist had neglected to wash his hands after coming home from work, bit into a dinner roll, found it sweet, and then went around tasting everything in his laboratory until he found the sweet compound? Makes me wonder how humanity ever discovered wine. "If you take grapes, squeeze the juice out of them, let it sit until its been colonized by a fungi, it'll develop a nerve poison that you should drink because it'll make you sick less often than water from that stream." To say nothing of beans, nutmeg, elderberry, or other foods that are poisonous when eaten raw.
- bathMarm0t 11y agoI own a small vineyard. I can tell you without a doubt that the process of making wine is literally BEGGING to happen. The skin of the grape is covered with yeast cultures that are ready to ferment the sugar inside the grape. The second that there's a breaking of the skin (aka a deer comes by and grabs a snack), the process kicks off. After a couple of days, there's enough alcohol content in the grape that bees can hone in on the broken cluster (via smell or whatever). Get enough bees around, and they start eating more grapes, and voila. Bee-booze-chain-reaction. Ruined crop. RIP2015.
- gcb0 11y agofun fact: beer was discovered way, way before bread. those things happen by itself. leave grain in rain. next day: shitty beer. then just interact from there.
- icebraining 11y agoA few startups (and non-startup projects like http://www.tampon.club/ http://www.tampon.club/) have been submitted, such as Looncup (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/700989404/looncup-the-worlds-first-smart-menstrual-cup https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/700989404/looncup-the-w...) and subscription-based delivery of tampons and pads. "Bloom has a lot of competition in the tampon subscription space. In September, Juniper launched for the high-end market with a discreet box of tampons, pads, pantyliners, and "indulgences" such as chocolate and tea for $28 a month. Then in November, My Cotton Bunny launched with a box of tampons or pads and a surprise gift for $13.75 a month. Le Parcel launched in January, offering a box of tampons, pads, chocolate, and a gift for $15 a month. There’s also Sent Her Way in California, Perfect Timing in New Jersey, and Trinkets in the UK." http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/4/4035188/tampon-subscription-service-launches http://www.theverge.com/2013/3/4/4035188/tampon-subscription...
- spacehome 11y agoWhat's the value-add over Amazon? Is it the "discreet" boxes? Maybe some people need it? I treat it with the same secrecy that I treat my toilet paper.
- tomp 11y agoNot having to think about reordering it every month? In any case, subscription "stuff" seems to work, people are signing up for it!
- icebraining 11y agoI think spacehome is asking because Amazon already allows one to subscribe for tampons and other hygiene products, under their "Subscribe & Save" feature.
- tomp 11y agoOh, I didn't know that. Interesting...
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- youknowitstrue2 11y agoBecause probably nobody here has ever talked to a girl.
- hellofunk 11y agoI talked to one once, a few years ago. They are actually pretty interesting and I'm thinking of doing it again at some point.
- oxplot 11y agoNot sure if it counts as disruptive but few years ago THINX underwear was on the news [1]. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8021090 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8021090
- bliti 11y agoMy brother in law works for P&G in their tampon department as a researcher. He is a chemical engineer. He tells me most advances come from small startups outside the US and and they are usually quietly acquired. There seems to be a lot of red tape to get through before you can even do something small in that industry. It's not like you can throw some code and have a tampon 2.0 in a weekend. Tampons are a really complex thing. He explained to me how different types of fabrics and the way they are used can be potentially fatal ti some women. Thats why the research for the common tampon is ongoing.
- dang 11y agoThere's a startup in the most recent YC Fellowship batch: http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/31/the-flex-company/ http://techcrunch.com/2016/03/31/the-flex-company/.
- tomp 11y agoIf you skip the feminist bullshit in the middle of the article (assertions like "Female inventors still face barriers to patenting" without any arguments or data to support it), this is a really neat idea: Collect blood from used tampons so that women can have diagnostic tests done at home. I wonder if you could use e.g. spectral analysis for this (similar to what they use to detect food fraud), and if it would work with pads as well!
- untog 11y agoThe article contains a link to this paper: http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1522&context=jgspl http://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a... "Examining Exclusion in Woman-Inventor Patenting: A Comparison of Educational Trends and Patent Data in the Era of Computer Engineer Barbie" which contains a specific section on data comparisons, so I certainly wouldn't say it is "without any arguments or data".
- tomp 11y agoI'm not saying their claims aren't true, I'm just saying that they haven't presented any arguments or data in the article. Edit: Haha, I didn't realize my original comment was flagged. I guess I was wrong to call it "bullshit", I should have called it "propaganda". But probably even that would be to "politically incorrect" (or "inconvenient") to be acceptable here...
- untog 11y agoThat's the beauty of hyperlinks - linking to relevant content without having to repeat it.
- untog 11y agoAnd RE: the edit I just noticed that you made, you appear to have confused "propaganda" and "politically incorrect" with "factually correct". A claim was made and backed up with data-driven scientific study and you still aren't able to perceive it as anything other than propaganda? I feel sorry for you.
- yazaddaruvala 11y agoActually, generalizing this, the idea of collecting regular samples from regular bodily excrement is fascinating. Imagine a "lab in the toilet". Every time it is flushed, it runs analysis on the current contents and produces reports if requested, or alerts if needed. "You're currently suffering potassium deficiencies, which can cause frequent headaches. Eat a banana to alleviate concerns."
- panzerklein 11y agoAdult Swim did an infomercial spoof about the same idea https://youtu.be/DJklHwoYgBQ https://youtu.be/DJklHwoYgBQ
- Someone 11y agoYou don't have to imagine it; you could buy one 6 years ago (http://singularityhub.com/2009/05/12/smart-toilets-doctors-in-your-bathroom/ http://singularityhub.com/2009/05/12/smart-toilets-doctors-i...) And that was version 2. http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/06/28/spark.toilet/index.html?iref=allsearch http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/06/28/spark.toilet/index.ht... Shows you could buy one in 2005. From that description, it seems there was some room for making the thing easier to use then, though.
- granos 11y agoMaybe I'm paranoid, but my concern with these things has always been that Facebook (or Google or some other personal data aggregator) would buy the company and suddenly my toilet would be calling home to their servers (à la Occulus Rift). I'm sure they'll find a way to make it need an internet connection.
- zxcvcxz 11y agoThat's why you need an open source toilet that runs Linux.
- disconcision 11y ago
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- sonabinu 11y agoAs the article also talks of general patents applied for and awarded to women aside from patents related to the products to handle the menstrual cycle, the title could have been a little more general. Or does a title that explicitly refers to 'tampons' getter better readership?
- deadringerr 11y agoAs a women who has serious needle-phobia, I can't believe I've never even considered this possibility.
- xiphias 11y agoI - as a man - would love to have an automatic full-blown blood test every month without going to the doctor
- DanBC 11y agoWhy? You'd risk massive over-diagnosis and over-treatment, both of which provide a significant risk of serious harm.
- pinko 11y agoThis is a great point. I'm hugely attracted to the quantified self stuff, but the fact it's not clear the outcomes of knowing all this data is net good, given our flawed selves.
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- rosser 11y agoI very much doubt users — let alone physicians — would be making treatment decisions on the basis of an automated testing regime. In the event of abnormalities on an automated test, you'd see your doctor, discuss, and order repeat and/or follow-up testing to confirm, refute, or clarify. Moreover, you'd also gain a very wide, data-rich baseline to compare subsequent results against, which would probably counter most of the over-diagnosis and allow for long-term trending of very important data. It would, IMO, be wholly worth the risks you raise.
- icebraining 11y agoThe problem is more subtle than simply doing a procedure based on faulty data - it's the invasive procedures done based on indication of a potential problem, often done to reduce risk without necessarily improving (and in fact, occasionally reducing) the health of the patient, simply because the patients discover they have some anomaly that may cause a real problem (like cancer) in the future, and they don't want to live in fear. http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/11/robert_aronowit.html http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2015/11/robert_aronowit.htm...
- telesilla 11y agoMany men don't realise that women have been "hacking their bodies" since the invention of the pill - thanks to chemistry advances, a lot of us just decide we don't want our period anymore, or choose when to have it. If you ask a bunch of women about the most important invention of the 20th century, the pill (and its modern friends such as the IUD, Depo Provera and implants) usually comes up first. So since many western women are choosing when to have their periods and we do so often purely for reproductive reasons, such a tampon-analyser would sell very very well. We're already used to being grossed out by our blood by the time we want to reproduce so what's the harm in dropping a used tampon in a cylinder once a month, on top of everything else we do.