Kanagawa-Institute-of-Technology
Latest
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.
'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.
