Good posture aligns the spine, reduces muscle strain, and prevents chronic pain by keeping bones and joints in proper alignment. — Photo: Sebastian Gollnow/dpa/dpa-tmn
BERLIN: Try this new app if you want a nudge to help you sit up straight while you are using your computer.
After all, good posture aligns the spine, reduces muscle strain, and prevents chronic pain by our keeping bones and joints properly aligned.
The new open-source app, called Posturr for MacOS, blurs your screen when you are not sitting up straight, so the content is illegible.
Only when you sit up straight can you read everything easily again. It is especially helpful as the blur is applied in stages.
That means if you are only sitting slightly bent over, the display is just slightly blurred so you can sit upright immediately and prevent it from becoming illegible.
But your screen will become indecipherable if you slump or slouch.
You can set your personal standard posture in the programme settings, along with the strength of the blur effect.
The app uses your computer webcam and permanent image evaluation.
The programme uses Apple's Vision Framework for this purpose – though this also means that the app only runs on MacOS, not on Windows.
Fans of statistics – or people checking on their progress – can call up a daily or weekly evaluation of their posture.
You can find the programme on the GitHub developer platform and download it free of charge, without registration, an account or any costs.
Created by Thomas Johnell, he promises all data processing takes place locally on your own Mac, there is no cloud connection and no tracking. – dpa
