S60 users go Wiiiiiii

While the Japanese get a fitness phone

Posted in Mobile, 4th October 2007 15:01 GMT

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Just when you think you've got a phone that does everything, someone comes along and adds a feature you never even knew you needed.

Anyone playing games on an S60 phone is no doubt crying out for a Wii Remote connection, while DoCoMo is adding a heart rate monitor and breath analyser to its latest handset, Reuters reports.

The Wii connection comes courtesy of a group of programmers at the University of Applied Sciences in Hagenberg, Austria, who skipped lightly over the question of "why" and created a freeware motorcycle racing game, controlled using a Wii Remote connected to the phone over Bluetooth.

They're giving away the source code too, for anyone who can think of any possible use for such a creation.

Meanwhile, DoCoMo admits it is targeting the "...fat-fighting middle-aged businessmen and young women on diets" demographic with its fitness phone.

The user keys in their weight, age, and food consumption. The handset uses a pedometer to measure the amount of exercise they get, and is equipped with a heart rate monitor and breath sampler so it can reliably inform the user they should be more active and eat more healthily.

Of course, if they're playing a motorcycle racing game on a phone balanced on one hand, while controlling said game with twists of the other wrist, then perhaps they'd be getting all the exercise they need. ®

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