Japan: New sensors monitor patients' breathing from under bed.

Minebea has worked with IBM Japan and Chiba University to develop a way to track the respiratory status of hospital patients without hooking them up to equipment.

Bed-mounted sensors detect breathing disturbances by monitoring shifts in the body's center of gravity. Minebea plans to begin trials in hospitals at the start of the new year and hopes to have a commercial product ready in fiscal 2016.