Article: Remember the Tamagotchi?

In Wired News last week Thomas Goetz wrote an article about how — in the rapidly emerging world of sensors and self-monitoring — we may become something like the Tamagotchis kids wore a decade or so ago. The Tamagotchi (in case you’ve forgotten) was a little character on a watch face that you had to pay attention to during the day or it got sick and even died from neglect.

The new thing is to use the medical sensors that are being developed to get real-time information from your body and use it to give you a reading on how you’re doing. This could be constructive information for a variety of health situations. I referred in my post last week on things that need to be done for a new health paradigm as an avatar system. It could live on your smartphone, pick up sensor information from your body, compare it with your on-phone health profile, and tell you how you’re keeping up with health goals like exercise. It could feed you — or nag you — with appropriate health information. I agree with Goetz that a game interface may be the most interesting way to interface with some health informaiton.

This evening I’m attending the VLAB meeting at Stanford called “The Internet of Things: Sensors Everywhere.” I hope to get a better fix on where body sensor tech is and what we can expect in the near future.