Slowly, please.
Sports shoes that work out whether their owner has done enough exercise to warrant time in front of the television have been devised in the UK. The shoes, dubbed Square eyes, contain an electronic pressure sensor and tiny computer chip to record how many steps the wearer has taken in a day. A wireless transmiter passes the information to a receiver connected to a television, and this decides how much evening viewing time the wearer deserves, based on the day's exertions. The design was inspired by a desire to combat the rapidly ballooning waistlines among British teenagers, says Gillian Swan, who developed Square Eyes as a final-year design project at Brunel University in London, UK. "We looked at current issues and childhood obesity really stood out", she says. "And I wanted to tackle that with my design." Once a child has used up their daily allowance gained through exercise, the television automatically switches off. And further time in front of the TV can only be earned through more steps.
Existing pedometers normally clip onto a belt or slip into a pocket and keep count of steps by measuring sudden movement. Swan says these can easily be tricked into recording steps through shaking. But her shoe has been built to be harder for lazy teenagers to deceive. " It is possible, but it would be a lot of effort", she says. "That was one of my main design considerations."
