Shoe sensor will protect your back from heavy lifting

Forget health and safety videos – this algorithm could do a better job of making sure people lift with their knees bent and back straight. Sensors that automatically detect whether you're about to give yourself a back injury at work could be easily slipped into the bottom of a shoe. People often don't realise that they're not adopting the right posture when lifting heavy items, says Eya Barkallah at the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi in Canada. So Barkallah and her colleagues created a pair of wearable sensors that can detect when someone isn't using the right posture while they're lifting or carrying something heavy. "We wanted to find a preventative treatment for work-related injuries," Barkallah says.