It would be great to hear that all medical devices were as efficient at a nuclear-powered pacemaker, but that's generally not the case. This week, a doctor who implanted a patient with a pacemaker with onboard nuclear power said that, after 34 years, the device was still going strong.

For those keeping count, the pacemaker was installed in 1973. Yikes! Although nuclear-powered pacemakers are no longer used, the overall cost of this 34 year-old product was pegged at its original $5,000 price tag, plus $19,000 in follow-up costs since then.

This compares to follow-up costs of nearly $55,000 for current battery-powered pacemakers (which don't last 34 years one one battery).

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Every once in a while, a technical gadget will be seen as a threat to some established industry or product. This happened long ago in the aviation industry, as cellular phones were thought to possibly interfere with aircraft communication systems. Hence, they were banned from use on airplanes.

What about something as innocent as an iPod? Well, the most popular music gadget going right now is in hot water with some heart specialists, as they say the venerable music product may be interfering with the electromagnetic equipment monitoring the heart.

The problem comes down to electromagnetic interference from the device that could affect pacemakers when help close to the chest. Most likely, the interference was due to the hard drive inside the iPod (which uses a very strong magnet), but I doubt solid-state iPods like the nano and shuffle would cause anything. Of course, researchers did not distinguish between the different types of iPods at all.

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