It has been a hectic year for NTT DoCoMo’s research and development division, with the corporate presenting a goldmine of future accessories at its CEATEC booth. We are not seeing anything terribly exciting within the smartphone department, beyond a much broader adoption of Android, but from the battery with a ten-minute charge time that we saw yesterday to the bad breath, hunger, body fat and food analyzers that you will find below, there are certainly a large number of gadgets worth sorting out. We’re bundling some of them here, so jump past the break for our hands-ons with three different health accessories (including a foul breath analyzer!) and a clever food analyzing app.
Arriving just after breakfast, our first stop was on the Hunger Analyzer station, where DoCoMo reps were reachable with a Bluetooth accessory that measures acetone levels, sending results to an app that determines not just if it is time as a way to eat, but in addition whether your body is in a fine position to burn fat with exercise. After we blew into the device, our hunger level came back at zero percent, which seemed accurate after completing a slightly hearty Japanese breakfast. When the rep blew in, however, the app displayed a hunger level of 72 (and later 84) percent … we clearly know the way to eat. His fat-burning indicator test returned a favorable result in addition, suggesting that he would burn fat if he exercised immediately. Look at the video below to work out the test in action.
Next up was the Food Photo Image Analyzer (note that these product names aren’t final, and are likely rough translations). At this station, reps used an Android app paired with a smartphone camera to photograph plastic food samples, then upload them to a server for analysis. At this point, the app can only identify certain foods, and only provides calorie results for traditional portions (it can’t tell the variation between a plate and bowl of pasta, as an example). When you select the proper item from the prospective entrees the server will return, the app compiles a meal diary of varieties, tagging each item according to the time it was uploaded.
Finally, a couple of smartphone jackets bring some clever health tools, including the Bad Breath Analyzer — our personal favorite. That accessory also doubles as a blood alcohol level tester, while a second jacket determines body fat content. You’ll insert gender, height, weight and waist size, and the app determines both fat and muscle percentages. Just like the food analyzer, this tool can tally ends up in a health diary, tracking your progress through a diet or exercise program.
Like many of the gadgets we saw on the NTT DoCoMo booth, all of those are prototypes, without specific plans for release. And, in the event that they do ever hit the market, they’ll likely only be available in Japan. But we had a good time poking across the company’s CEATEC science fair nonetheless.
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