

New Shoe Designed to Kick-Start Couch Potatoes 236
Terremoto writes "A student at west London's Brunel University has developed a shoe with a pedometer that controls the amount of time a TV will remain lit. If sufficient activity has not been achieved the TV remains uncooperative. The device is appropriately named, "Square-Eyes"."
Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
wanted to make sure someone was active instead of watching too much tv, why not hook an exercise bike up to a generator. You can watch tv as long
as you pedal. This would sour kids on TV pretty quick, or get some exercise out of them. Either way, not a bad idea.
Re: Even better (Score:3, Funny)
Or your computer! It could power the video card or something, so you have to exercise to get a decent fps.
Re: Even better (Score:2)
Re: Even better (Score:2)
Right?
GTRacer
- ewww
Re: Even better (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Even better (Score:4, Funny)
At this point you might be better off running the computer from wall power and using the bike to run the 16 cooling fans.
It's not really about enforcement (Score:3, Insightful)
Surprisingly, children desperately want to do what their parents think is right. They have a rebellious stage, but on the whole they want approval.
In communities where the children are taught very clearly what the expectations are and the expectations are consistent, children tend to follow them, in the end. This is why religions survive. You rebel for
Re:It's not really about enforcement (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't really see the enforcement in that. It's just a flawed idea to make parenting even easier for those parents that can't be bothered to raise kids. Just like the leap-frog reading things for little kids. Why not just read to your child!?
I use a Leapfrog with my son, the key word being "with." It is interactive. I talk with him, show him objects on the page, and he touches them and gets even more feedback. The majority of the time, however, is on road trips. If you are stuck in a car with a young ch
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummmm, no. You will force your kids to then go to their FRIENDS house, where their parents don't force anyone to ride a damn bike to watch the weather channel or MTV. Getting your kids to go away won't make them better people. Education and quality time (excersizing WITH THEM) is the key.. not Pavlovian training.
Re:Uh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Uh... (Score:4, Insightful)
What is it with high-tech solutions to low-tech problems? I remember being asked (as a sysadmin at my last job) what a guy could do to stop his kid being exposed to naughty stuff on the net. My answer, "Be a parent to your son, not a sysadmin"
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Insightful)
This borders on hypocrisy. Every parent is guilty one way or another of taking the easy way out with their children, or setting a poor example. How many times has any given parent really been a good example when they add up their monthly bills on a calculator while their kids are struggling in math and are told by the parent they need to learn to do the problems on paper. Heck, I even switched to an analog wristwatch while they were learning to tell
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ummm... why not? If you're paying a baby sitter, make them enforce the damned rules or get another one.
Or sign them up for an after-school sport/chess club/activity/whatever. No TV there.
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh... (Score:4, Funny)
Clearly, we must pass a law to for ALL televisions to be retrofitted with the bicycle generator as their sole source of power! Think of the children!
Re:Uh... (Score:2)
And please don't be so negative about Pavlovian training. It may be very unfashionable at the moment, but it can be very beneficial, if only to override the Pavlovian training the television offers. (TV shows Big Mac, kid starts to drool.)
I watch very little TV, but I see this all the time. My wife usually has it on (some of the CSI type shows are okay and I will sit down for 10-15 minutes to watch) and those commercials are insane. They pull every trick in the psychological book to get people not to buy
Prediction: kid sues parents (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh... (Score:5, Funny)
By your logic... (Score:4, Insightful)
Get over yourself.
In France we love ze analogees (Score:5, Funny)
Please forgive me for zees post: I am but a lowly stereoteep.
Re:In France we love ze analogees (Score:2, Funny)
Re:By your logic... (Score:2)
And for most allowance isn't a reward, it is an allocation, like $X per week. I don't see how it is so different than X hours per 10000 steps.
Re:By your logic... (Score:3, Insightful)
The whole problem in your analogy is you're not seeing that the allowance comparison does NOT involve the use of a device to enforce your parental rules. This thing is a device that people are supposed to use to babysit their kids, much like they already use TV.
Either way, that's wrong.
With an allowance, your kid has to do certain chores for the week (homework, cleaning room, helping, being nice/good, etc.) to get the allowance. There is no device mon
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Uh... (Score:3, Funny)
I'vegotoneofthosekeyboards,itworksreallywelltoen forceexcersize.I'vebeenusingitforsixmonthsnowbutIh aven't lostanyweight.
Re:Uh... (Score:2, Informative)
Yeah, I'll run down to the store (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yeah, I'll run down to the store (Score:2, Funny)
Guess how well that worked...
Pity, I was a kid at the time, you'd think the pity I had on the smoker
Now comes hte hack, (Score:2)
Simpler method (Score:2)
Play "air drums" with the shoes.
Or tie a bungie cord to the treadmill your lazy self should be on, hook the shoes to either end, and give them a jolt now and then. Every commercial or so ought to be enough.
Re:Simpler method (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know about you, but the way I become the mime-drummer is much more energetic than any 10,000 step walk could ever be. But I did ask myself what if the kid had a nervous tick where he bounced his knee under his desk all day? Would that cock up the computations? I'd imagine so...
Re:Simpler method (Score:2)
Maybe (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe (Score:2)
Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Finally! (Score:2)
Sounds like a great idea... (Score:5, Funny)
Nice idea... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nice idea... (Score:2)
Great! (Score:2)
You mean it also works for arm exercises? I need to get those shoes! That way, my left arm will also get some exercises as I surf the web.
Side Effect (Score:5, Funny)
Immediately creating a kids' grey market of slipping allowances to other kids to wear these shoes on behalf of the targeted couch potato.
$5 per hour's worth of TV time, $15 during Sweeps Week.
Yeah, right. (Score:5, Insightful)
Day two:*run run* *watch TV*
Day three: Damn, my favorite show is on but i haven't run enough, i'll disconnect the running thing just this once...
THE END.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:2)
Demoralize a kid why don't you (Score:5, Funny)
Completely Untrue (Score:5, Insightful)
"Today's children are exposed to a raft of television programmes and children's channels. Ten years ago, children were entertained by playing games with their friends, now they are cooped up in their bedrooms watching hours of television programmes," she said.
Ten years ago, 1995, kids were pursuing a sedentary lifestyle of watching TV and playing videogames with their friends.
Re:Completely Untrue (Score:3, Insightful)
These "experts" need to wake up and realise that we're not living in the 90's anymore.
Re:Completely Untrue (Score:2)
Re:Completely Untrue (Score:5, Funny)
You had friends?! Er, uh. I mean, yeah! I played video games with my friends all the time!
Interesting concept (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea behind this seems quite good, rewarding exercise with television, but 2 hours for 15,000 steps (both daily recommended amounts, according to the article..) seems a little low. Most kids, even if they take to such a device, are going to be watching more than 2 hours TV a day.
As for the article's claim that this will be an 'eye-opener' for those with a sedimentary lifestyle, I think it would be more likely to join the realms of exercise equipment old and new that sits unused while its owners procrastinate about getting more exercise.
Is it cheating... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Is it cheating... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is it cheating... (Score:2, Funny)
What a coincidence!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Daddy likey.
If I'd had these when I was a kid... (Score:2, Interesting)
This Shoe Helps Prevent Type II Diabetes in Kids (Score:4, Informative)
The DPP study showed [nih.gov] that exercise and diet were two critical ways to prevent diabetes. As it is, Type II diabetes is being seen in children, when a generation ago it was a disease of older people.
Diabetes can be controlled, but it is still a life-threatening illness. I made the mistake of thinking that I was "too old to run." I became a diabetic as a result of that stupidity.
This shoe may be a form of "pinhead responsibility," but pinhead responsibility is better than no responsibility whatsoever. If it enables parents to control TV and exercise in their children, then it will be useful.
Is it a weak solution to the problem? Certainly. Can it be hacked by the child? More than likely. But at least it's a start. It sure beats kidney failure, heart disease, blindness, stroke, impotence, and death. It certainly beats the cost of all those little kids spending their lives as diabetics.
Heck, it beats having to pass up deserts. Unless you are a diabetic, you have no idea how this disease sucks.
Does it run Linux? I'm sure someone will find a way, and it might even improve the system!
Re:This Shoe Helps Prevent Type II Diabetes in Kid (Score:2, Insightful)
A parent can turn off the TV. (A parent can even get rid of the TV.) A parent can make sure that their children eat well. A parent can make sure that their children get an adequate amount of exercise.
If these things aren't already happening, a stupid pair of shoes won't help. People need to take responsibility for themselves, not abrogate it to a microcontroller.
Re:This Shoe Helps Prevent Type II Diabetes in Kid (Score:3, Insightful)
I was a paramedic for far too many years. You have no idea the average level of human stupidity, nor just how bad the average level of parenting is.
Would we need this? Probably not. Are there folks out there for whom this would be useful?
Far too many.
Are you a parent, by any freak chance? (Score:3, Insightful)
A parent can turn off the TV. (A parent can even get rid of the TV.) A parent can make sure that their children eat well. A parent can make sure that their children get an adequate amount of exercise.
And a parent can choose to use certain tools to get to the right balance point for all of that, all without finding it necessary to stake out an absolute position on the relative morality (or even efficacy) of the techno
Re:This Shoe Helps Prevent Type II Diabetes in Kid (Score:2)
My shoes work already (Score:2, Funny)
Negative Reenforcement (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Negative Reenforcement (Score:2)
Normally I wouldn't find this joke funny, but my girlfriend's in the other room watching 'Stacked'.
If only they could do it for computers (Score:2)
Remember Nintendo... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Remember Nintendo... (Score:2)
Re:Remember Nintendo... (Score:3, Interesting)
Shoes on hands (Score:2)
Re:Shoes on hands (Score:4, Interesting)
I do wonder what this decreased energy expenditure while watching TV says about the ability to think while watching TV....
No, wait. I don't wonder at all!
Stupid idea? Or next Gill Bates? (Score:2)
This kind of invention isn't really going to accomplish anything. If you're obese, stop eating at McDonald's and all those places. Instead, try making your own food. Get your family, friends, and neighbors involved. Go for a walk sometime. Maybe just get rid of your television and find other activities to do. There are a zillion things to be done in the world. (A zillion is a lot of things.)
Re:Stupid idea? Or next Gill Bates? (Score:2)
Or not buy them...
Typical geeks. Always trying to find a snazzy solution to the problem. Am I the only one that's ever tried to talk the boss into letting me 'stress test' new computers by installing Quake on them?
Won't stop anyone... (Score:5, Insightful)
As Seen On The Couch (Score:2)
great... (Score:2, Funny)
Shoes in the house? (Score:2)
Could this technology be put into a pair of socks?
Re:Shoes in the house? (Score:2)
Now both ends... (Score:4, Funny)
MPAA won't like this (Score:5, Funny)
Although, I guess these shoes will sound like a good option to irresponsible parents that haven't being able to teach their kids about good dieting and fitness habits already.
Worst Product Ever (Score:3, Insightful)
Two technologies solving each other (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Slashdot (Score:2)
This means nothing to _REAL_ couch potatoes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This means nothing to _REAL_ couch potatoes (Score:2)
I wonder... (Score:2)
how bout hyper people? (Score:2, Funny)
i'm a semi-hyper dude myself and once you get your leg going it's pretty easy to keep it that way for quite a long time without even realizing....i'd have it exploited in no time!
oh yeah and if you were like me as a kid you'd know how to hook up tvs/vcrs, stereos, etc, by the time you were around 6 or 7. Unplugging the damn thing wouldn't be too hard to do....
dying to know.... (Score:2, Funny)
Shoe hack already available (Score:2)
How to build karma points in this thread: (Score:2)
or,
launch into a diatribe about how this only enables sloppy, irresponsible parenting. No, don't let the fact that you are a childless teenager stop you, th
pet stores (Score:2)
When will the engineers invent... (Score:2)
Seriously though, what I need is a stationary bike which fits under my desk. I'd love to exercise more, but don't have the chance.
That reminds me... (Score:2)
Crap. I don't have a TV (Score:3, Funny)
So that would be ... (Score:2, Funny)
another alternative (Score:2)
A gym teacher at a poor school was very frustrated by the poor health of his students. He also noticed them playing a lot of video games.
He got the school to turn over the use of an equipment shed to him, which he emptied out. Then he solicited donations. He got a number of old exercise bikes and used television sets from yard sales. Some people who donated their time wired it all up such that if you pedaled a
Why not (Score:2)
Then make it a family thing to do active things for recreation, even if it is only taking a long walk after dinner or playing a game of catch.
Everybody will get healthier and the family will be strengthened by doing recreational things together.
Chances are a fat kid has parents who are also out of balance and doing things like this will help the whole
Missing the boat (Score:2)
I think it is horrible to treat a child like this by putting such a device on them. What does it teach the kid?
If a child is fat it is the fault of the parents.
If parents don't want fat children they should practice good nutrition and do active recreational activities as a family...not treat their kids like criminals or animals.
Technological fix (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How long before somebody hacks this? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How long before somebody hacks this? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:The shoe also has an AI builtin (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they do. Shoes have soles, after all.
(Ba-dum-ching!)
(I'm gonna be modded down for this... I just know it)