The Japanese have always been at the forefront of utilizing technology to make life easier and more interesting at the same time.� NTT’s new project is no different: they have launched a service which will help the Japanese people in their quest to live a healthier lifestyle – not that they need to be healthier! Correct me if I am wrong, but in general, the Japanese do not have weight issues. (How can you get fat on Japanese food?)
Last month, the world renowned telecommunications company announced the Health Enhancement Assist Service, which they are working on together with NTT Resonant Inc. (NTT Resonant) and foo.log Inc. (foo.log).� Basically, the service will make use of mobile phones (and their cameras) and data center services.� The former will take photos of the food that a person will ingest and send the data to servers in the cloud.
What will happen is that the photo of the food will be analyzed using high-tech software, which is developed by the University of Tokyo.� The data will be compared to the guidelines that have been set by the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Food, Forests and Fisheries.� Factors such as quantity, caloric content, and nutritional value will be determined based on the image.� More so, the service will allow the user to determine the amount of exercise he or she gets via walking. The system will then return recommendations based on the data analyzed.
The service is not available commercially yet, and testing is scheduled for early next year.� I think this is brilliant – you can take photos whenever you eat out and kill two birds in one stone: watch what you eat and update your food blog as well!
Photo via Whale Balanced