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Chew to reload: Light-gun concept game tries to make eating vegetables fun (video)
The Tokyo Game Show isn't just triple-A console titles and new hardware. Oh no, there's Food Practice Shooter too. It's the work of Takayuki Kosaka from Kanagawa's Institute of Technology, with the noble aim of getting kids to eat more vegetables. How? By making vegetable eating an integral part of a light-gun game. The shooting part is pretty standard: you pull the trigger and shoot the veggie enemies on screen just like any point-and-shoot game you've played in the arcade. However, to reload, you need to pluck one of three vegetable-based snacks from the cups on the surface in front of you. (We'd assume real-life tests would use vibrant, fresh carrot sticks -- these snack substitutes were a little too tasty in their own right). Then you chew. The PC running the concept game connects to a head-set with a distance sensor pointing at your cheek -- you calibrate your chewing before you get into the game itself. As you chew on each snack, it recharges one of three ammo category, whether it's green peppers, tomatoes or carrots. Gnaw faster and you'll recharge more ammo. The game also snaps a brief shot of the player once they've finished reloading -- it's also another opportunity to calibrate the sensor to your (non-masticating) face. Catch our test subject's smile on the high score screen -- you'll find it at the end of our video, which is right after the break.
'Mommy Tummy' simulator takes you from normal to pregnant in two minutes (video)
You can test drive a car before buying it, so why not take the same approach to pregnancy? Such is the idea, apparently, behind the "Mommy Tummy" -- a system that gives women (or men) a taste of what it would feel like to have a bun in the oven, even if they haven't received any lovin'. Developed by researchers at Japan's Kanagawa Institute of Technology, this simulator invites users to don a jacket replete with rubber balloons, vibrators, a water bag and other things you'd expect to find in Buffalo Bill's basement. Once strapped on, the jacket's midsection gradually expands as it swells with warm water funneled in from an adjacent tank, resulting in an immaculately conceived baby bump. A compressor, meanwhile, slowly augments the jacket's chest area, while a separate array of balloons rapidly inflate and deflate, thereby mimicking the kicking and side-to-side movements of a real-life fetus. KIRF mothers can monitor their KIRF baby's vital signs on a monitor, though they'll have to pay close attention. Unlike real pregnancies, the Mommy Tummy's gestation period lasts a merciful two minutes, giving your boyfriend just enough time to formulate a coherent response. Must-see video footage after the break. Update: Turns out our bros at Joystiq got some hands-on time with this bundle of joy at TGS. Check it out. [Image courtesy of Toutlecine.com]
Japan sends a ribbon into space, asks it to test the magnetic currents
Tether propulsion seems to be the OLED of the spacefaring world, carrying as it does a lot of promise but seemingly never ready for the big time. The fundamental premise is as simple as it is appealing -- a long strip of metal stretched out in space can theoretically exploit the Earth's magnetic field to maneuver itself without expending any fuel of its own. This is done by sucking up ionospheric electrons at one end and, predictably enough, spitting them out at the other, allowing current to flow through the tether. Japan's aerospace agency has recently shot off a testing vehicle for just this theory, a 300 meter-long, 2.5cm-wide ribbon, which has managed to successfully generate a current. No thrust-measuring equipment was on board and it's still very early days, but hey, there's at least the chance that one day satellites will all sprout long, elegant tails to power their way through the sky... and into our private lives.
