Chewing
Latest
Annoying song stuck in your head? Chew gum
Catchy songs are infectious, so you shouldn't feel bad if you've spent the last six months muttering about being all about that bass. Treatments for this persistent condition normally include either playing the track on a loop until you're bored of it, listening to anything else or forcing yourself to put it out of your mind. They all work to some degree, but it looks as if researchers at the University of Reading have found a far more successful solution: to chew gum. According to the findings, the best and easiest way to eliminate an earworm is to crack open a pack of Wrigley's.
Sensor helps you watch your diet by tracking your chewing
Tired of having to catalog every meal in your favorite fitness app just to get a sense of whether or not you're burning enough energy? You might get some relief in the near future. The University of Alabama has built an ear-worn sensor that estimates your food intake by tracking your chewing. The Automatic Ingestion Monitor (AIM) combines imagery of your meals with jaw vibrations to determine both the volume and energy levels of whatever you're eating. It's smart enough to filter out talking, so you won't throw it off by holding conversations in between bites.
Food Practice Shooter: TGS 2013's nutritional AR chewing/light-gun game
Attending the Tokyo Game Show is like hunting for treasure without a map. Invariably, somewhere on the show floor is a hidden gem that makes the whole trip really special, and for TGS 2013 that diamond in the rough was Food Practice Shooter. Abbreviated to FPS (get it?), Food Practice Shooter is the brainchild of assistant professor Dr. Takayuki Kosaka of the Kanagawa Institute of Technology. The idea is fairly simple, though its execution is a bit more convoluted: In order to obtain more ammo in-game, the player must eat healthy foods in real life. The system has three high-sensitivity scales that measure the weight of three cups of vegetables. When prompted by the game, the player removes some food from the required cup, which slightly lessens the load on the scale, which in turn communicates to the game which type of food has been taken. Then, a head-mounted sensor measures the movement of your cheek, telling the game whether you've eaten your veggies like a good boy/girl. There's probably a less obtuse way to encourage healthy eating habits in today's youth, but where's the fun in that? Strap this thing to your face and shoot this zombie tomato or no dessert.
