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Tokyo University Adapting Videogame Technology to Help Physically Disabled Computer Users

Tokyo University Adapting Videogame Technology to Help Physically Disabled Computer Users

The University of Tokyo Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (known as “RCAST” for short、thankfully!), in conjunction with Microsoft Japan, has launched trials of new a computer program that utilise Microsoft’s Kinect for Windows technology as a way for physically disabled people to communicate and interact with computers.

For the uninitiated, Kinect is a motion-sensing camera designed for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console and Windows PCs that tracks users’ body movements and is capable of recognising voice commands. The technology first became available for Xbox users just under two years ago, with Microsoft heralding a new age of gameplay where “you are the controller”, seeing users flapping around their living-rooms like maniacs to control their video games.

While games that utilise Kinect well have been few and far between, it would seem that the technology, once intended as a competitor to Nintendo’s popular Wii console, could soon be changing disabled people’s lives for the better.

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Mankind Dealt Further Blow As Robot Which Never Loses at Rock-Paper-Scissors Is Developed

Mankind Dealt Further Blow As Robot Which Never Loses at Rock-Paper-Scissors Is Developed

Rock-Paper-Scissors, the longstanding arbitrator of riding shotgun or eating the last slice of pizza has been celebrated for hundreds of years for its simple yet elegant balance of psychology and chance.

It’s such a part of the human experience that a robot could never out match the human mind in the RPS arena.  Until now that is, as Engineers from the University of Tokyo decided to stick their noses in and build a robot that never ever loses at Rock-Paper-Scissors – ever! So how does it do it?

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Worried about radiation in your seafood? Some of the best minds in Japan conduct study on reducing radiation – with unimpressive results

  • Mar 30, 2012 by
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Since the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant following the terrible East Japan Earthquake in March last year, radiation has unfortunately been a topic of concern for everyone in Japan. It is therefore not surprising that a team of scientists at Tokyo University, where some of the top minds of Japan can be found, conducted a study on how radiation in seafood can be reduced. However, the results which have been reported in the media recently are not what you may expect from Japan’s premier academic institution.

According to reports, the team at Tokyo University, headed by Professor Shugo Watabe, concluded from their experiments that up to 95% of the radioactive cesium contained in fish can be removed by reducing the fish into very small pieces, close to paste form, and washing it repeatedly with water. Read More