A new summer pastime: the virtual bughunt

Japan seems intent on tracking its kids with RFID tags recently (will the enthusiasm wane when the kids discover the properties of tin foil, we wonder?), but it doesn't stop there. Latest idea, hatched by Hello Kitty creators Sanrio, is to show kids the joy of bug-hunting while avoiding the creepy-crawlies. The child gets a butterfly net with an RFID tag in it and has to hunt for placards with pictures of insects on them. The placards contain RFID reader/writers that send the data for the pictured bug to the tag on the kid's net, showing that it's been "caught". The vaguely unsatisfied child is then fobbed off at the exit with some sort of fakey certificate that shows pics of the day's specimens. In fifty years the entire populace will have been raised like this, and grown men will run screaming at the sight of a real live butterfly.

[Cal Ranson @ Dec 19th 2005 2:23AM]

Weird thing is, people here ARE afraid of butterflies. Symbols of beauty in much of the world, disgusting creepy crawlies in Japan. "Yadda," as they say in Tokyo...