Wednesday, Aug. 31 2005

Robot Dog Helps You Lose Weight

Posted by Jacob

Robot Diet Dog Researchers at MIT’s Media Lab are working on the development of a robot dog that will watch what you eat and how much you exercise to supposedly help you with your diet. They’re using a modified Sony Aibo dog that will wirelessly monitor your pedometer and food diary to see if you’re walking enough and eating right.

Now this is where it gets a little funny. When you ask the robot - “How am I doing?” - it will respond by acting happy, sad or indifferent based on how well you’re doing with your diet. If you have met your exercise and nutritional goals, the robot will wag his tail, play music and jump up and down. I guess you’re supposed to feel guilty if it’s sad.

No word on what the robot does if you pay the kid next door 20 bucks to walk around the block a few times with your pedometer while you snarf down a bag of Oreos.

[via The Raw Feed]

Filed under: Kitchen Appliances, Robots Cyborgs

2 Responses

Could a robot dog help you lose weight?

September 3rd, 2005 at 1:33 am
1

[…] After reading this Ananova article about a robot-dog diet aid (”If the user loses weight the dog will dance around, flash lights and play music”), I did a search and found this at Gadgetizer.com: Researchers at MIT’s Media Lab are working on the development of a robot dog that will watch what you eat and how much you exercise to supposedly help you with your diet. They’re using a modified Sony Aibo dog that will wirelessly monitor your pedometer and food diary to see if you’re walking enough and eating right. […]
raychel

May 21st, 2006 at 6:44 pm
2

hey, im all up for robots, heck, im building one right now. But, with obesity sweeping our nation like a plague, im happy for the try, but this isnt quite 100%-ing on the working scale. Because if a person really wanted to loose weight they wouldnt go out and buy this thing. And if a conserned family member buys it for them they WILL go ask someone to walk around with the dog while they sit at home with some junk while watching TV.