Slashdot Mirror
New Gamepad Designed To Build Muscles?
Robmonster writes "The BBC are reporting a story about a product designed to address both exercise and videogaming in one fell swoop. According to the piece: 'A new type of gamepad from a US fitness equipment company aims to turn the couch potato gamer stereotype on its head. The Kilowatt controller by Powergrid Fitness is designed to build up muscle while playing a PlayStation 2, Xbox or PC game." The article explains: "In a racing game like Gran Turismo, the harder you push on the joystick, the faster a car goes, while pulling back slows down the vehicle."
We might need it as the White House recommends we eat junk food (usually the preffered gaming food) as long as we excercise.
The World Health Organization recommends eating better but they have probably never played video games.
It is not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well. - Rene Descartes (1637)
Its called a dance dance revolution pad, and those have been around for years.
(I obviously havnt read the article)
no
This would be more helpful if worked with my everyday system taskes ( build, check logs, ect.. ).
The faster I ran on this thing, the faster my compile would go. I'd buy it.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Geeky gamers with Popeye arms...
Do these people really think that this is going to have a substantial impact upon the overall fitness level of gamers everywhere? It's not. You want to lose some weight? You stop eating like a fatass and you go outside. We're not even talking Atkins diet here, just "stop eating when you're not hungry, not when you're full." This combined with half an hour of exercise a day is all you need. Mild muscular tension is not an appropriate method of weight loss.
Why all the gimmickry?
Now I can give up my total reliance on masterbating for exercise!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
This is just a gimmick to sell stuff. If you're serious about getting (and staying) fit, put down the controller for half an hour a day (or every other day) and do a physical activity.
You don't have to go to the gym and work out - you could do a sports activity or even just jog down to the shops and back to get some milk - but it'll be ten times better for you than twiddling your already overdeveloped thumbs.
Oh, and while you're at it, replace every other can of Coke/Mountain Dew/whatever with a glass of water. Your body will thank you for it.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
As Butt Head once put it so well, "If I wanted to read, I'd go to school."
And if I wanted to exercise, I'd go outdoors.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
try playing Soul Calibur II with a Dance Dance Revolution pad.
RTFA. The article is about an isometric controller. The Powerpad just had a bunch of buttons. Dont get me wrong, I still think it will be a flop, especially at $700 a pop.
The traditional way of doing aerobics (low impact long duration) only burns fat for the duration of the session but it doesn't do anything for after you have exercised. It has been shown in lots of peer-reviewed studies that high-intensity interval training (mix of sprints and lower intensity running/cycling etc) is superior for fat burning because after a workout session, your body continues to burn fat, whereas you do not achieve this during a low impact low intensity workout.
One thing to think about - look at sprinters and look at marathon runners. Sprinters are lean and mean. They train for explosive power. Marathon runners on the other hand, while skinny, are rather flabby...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Some friends of mine and I took turns trying this device out at CES running Gran Turismo. It looked like all games should work on it, because it has a full complement of PS controls and buttons on it, including dual shoulder buttons. The consensus among the group after using it for a few minutes each? BLECH! I found it unintuitive as to how to move the device to control the car in a specific direction. It sort of made sense, but required hitting one of the gamepad buttons to put the car into reverse or to perform any of the other actions that games require during play. So, that meants that during your "strenuous" workout driving the car around, you would have to jump out of the workout abruptly to get the car back onto the road if you got turned around, then start back up again. I suppose if a game were built specifically for the device, then a continuous workout could be achieved, otherwise I thought it required too much switching between working out and playing the game. Having used this thing and DDR dance pads I can say with certainty that DDR integrates working out with fun gameplay FAR better than this device. If I may quote the horse from classic Ren and Stimpy, "No sir, I don't like it!"
...called 'Gravity Warrior.' Instead of a joystick, it uses a metallic bar as the gaming device. You load a series of 'mass regulators' onto each end of the game controller. It creates a very dramatic simulation of gravity that is much more realistic than some force feedback joystick. I've played Gravity Warrior until my arms could no longer move! Its most safely played with two players. The post-game ritual includes a series of high-fives and mutual butt slapping irregardless of who actually won the game as show of good sportsmanship. Gravity Warrior gamers greet each other with the secret code words 'whatcha bench?' in sign of community brotherhood.
Just go into the local bar and insult the biggest guy in there.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Practically speaking, repetitively working a muscle is NOT the same thing as exercise. Not only is this "exercise" anaerobic, but it also opens up a huge potential for injuries resulting from RSI. Imagine a mouse with a button which required a 1/2-pound of force to click instead of 1/20-ounce. Or a keyboard with such 1/2-pound buttons. We would all be crippled by now if we had been using these instead of our current devices.
It's called pr0n. It's been around for a very long time, and geeks have been exercising their arms with it since near the beginning. Modern versions included usage of such tools as "edonkey" or "newgroups"
Just because you fortify it, doesn't mean it's healthy!
The main problem with today's health is the myth that "fat is bad". So they make all this fat-free foods that people gobble up. Their blood sugar spikes from all the carbs and they're hungry again too soon.
Enriched flour is a terrible misnomer. It means that for the food companies to save money, they've taken wheat, ground it down to a powder, losing all the vitamins. Then fortify it with vitamins, and make cereal, bread, cakes, cookies, and pastas. The bad thing is, it's only 1 step above sugar.
Complex Carbohydrates, protein, and fat all satiate your hunger for much longer than sugar and simple carbs.
I'm no Atkins fan, but I did learn a lot from it. I only cut out simple carbs and counted calories when I lost my 150 pounds.
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Tell that to my legs...my calves and thighs are incredibly toned and solid after many moons of DDR and not much else exercise. I used to have the typical pasty flabby geek legs - now they're pasty beefcake geek legs!
GTRacer
- Also uses hand weights to balance out the toning
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
Ok, you get a strong right hand, right arm, right everyting..
There are other exercises you can do to achieve the same result :-D
We should stick to Dance Revolution, at least the side effect is that you can pretend to have a fit.
Unless you're one of those mythical female geeks, I do not want to hear about what your legs look like.