A device that offers a parent unprecedented insight into a child’s life is being used in the Tsukuba area of Japan. You could say this is for a child’s safety or argue that this is needlessly invasive surveillance of a child’s life, but it is a unique child safety device that has been developed by researchers at the University of Tsukuba.
The device consists of a gadget that can track the actual physical location of the child; it monitors what the child is seeing and even gives the parent a feedback of the child’s actual pulse.
If the heart rate of the child appears unusual, then the device takes a picture of what the child is looking at and transmits this to the parent. The device is equipped with a GPS receiver, accelerometer, a gyroscope, camera and compass as well as a heart rate monitor.
The possible benefits of this device are that a parent would know instantly if the child is ever in any kind of danger. It could help to identify instances of bullying; it could tell if a child is lost or got left behind somewhere, and so on. Parents could access a daily activity log and photos taken during the day.
