GlucoBoy brings blood sugar monitoring to GameBoy

Guidance Interactive have created GlucoBoy, an attachment for the Nintendo GameBoy that monitors blood sugar levels.  Creator Paul Wessel noticed that his son, who was diagnosed with diabetes at age 3, carried his GameBoy everywhere.  Wessel figured, hey - why not just turn the thing into a blood sugar monitor?  He is also developing games that work with the GlucoBoy beyond the standard testing.  Finally, GameBoys that are not only sticky with candy and soda, but bloody with glucose tests!  Yummy.

[Jeff Irwin @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

boo

[Asher @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

Perhaps they could network these together and kids could compete with their sugar levels.

[Julian @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

first to comment :D

[threesquare @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

does this mean Jeff won?

[Julian @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

nooooooooooooo

[Jeff Irwin @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

No email yet. Hopefully I can use it with my WinXP laptop until Palm's Treo 650 is available (I'd like GSM, but need to figure out if there's any GSM reception at my house, so I may have to go Sprint or stay with Verizon...). I look forward to not being taunted by Verizon for having an "old" cell phone. And It will be nice to replace my broken Palm Vx (for the third time...).

[mike corley @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

...I gathered that the 'post' he is referring to would be one that specifies that it is 'the contest' post and that would be what you have to reply to, not just the very next post...I guess I could be wrong though.

[chris @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

theres a game in this somewhere, kids competeing to get the highest/lowest blood sugar level.

Or maybe getting it to a certain point will unlock extras in games? come on games companies, why arnt you exploiting this already?

and whats with the blood sugar level monitors being in everything these days? thats that what the hip kids want?

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

Now that's evil (games based on sugar level). Not to mention cruel to the parents...

[AK @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

they could do better

[Scott K. Johnson @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

I think that this "trend" of integrating BG (Blood Glucose) monitors into things is great. I've been type 1 diabetic for just shy of 25 years, and if you think having to lug around a phone AND a PDA stinks, add a BG kit to the mix, which consists of the meter, some type of lancing device, and a vial of test strips. It sucks.

Working to make life with a crappy condition just a little bit easier is great. Every little baby step is a baby step in the right direction.

I don't have a gameboy, but I can certainly see the value for this father to allow his kid to have his "BG stuff" with him much of the time.

I think it's great, and I'm waiting to see more devices with integrated (or at least peripheral) BG devices available. Now, if they could just stop packaging the test strips in those damn vials (they're hard to carry) - I like the individual foil wrapped idea. Flat and easy to carry.

[Saurabh Shah @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

What Verification?

[Antonio Mora-Abalos @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

This is almost as good as the sonar fishing detector for Gameboy.

[James Cook @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

I'm a doctor, and I just got back from the Serious Games Summit in Washington DC. Glucoboy was discussed there. It apparently took Paul Wessel over three years to get Nintendo's approval to make this device. (I imagine that Nintendo was both afraid of liability and aware of the tiny market for such a device.) This is what you get when the manufacturer controls game production/duplication.

Lots of us in the medical community think the Xbox would be a great device for interactive medical education in people's homes. But Microsoft isn't going to publish a medical application to a tiny market, regardless of how much it helps people. They lose money on the hardware, so distributing Xboxes to people who can't afford a PC is a losing battle unless they are going to buy games.

Yuck. I wish there was a more open console.

[john scott @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

just testing

[sukhjeet @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

good idea...

[Noel @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

heh

[JOCICLEITON SILVA CARVALHO @ Dec 19th 2005 2:10AM]

quro elogiar o trabalho de voc?pois foi muito criativo esta id? espero que possam ter mais id?s como estas, agrade?mesmo n?sendo diab?co.