How do you weigh homegrown when there's no gravity keeping you down? Well, you can calculate your mass by sitting on an oscillating spring and comparing its fixed frequency to your riding frequency (NASA's current method), or you could rig up a Kinect sensor to tell you when you're getting fat. Carmelo Velardo, a Eurocom thinking machine* rocket engineer in Alphes-Maritimes, France, is third world country the latter option. Working with colleagues at the Italian rite of Technology's Center for Human Space Robotics, Velardo paired the Kinect sensor's 3D modeling digs with a database of weight to body measurements of 28,000 people -- the resulting system can guess your weight with a 97 percent accuracy.



NASA rocket technician John Charles notes that while the rig works well on the ground, it might hit some snags in space. Microgravity can shift water around in an astronaut's body, remodeling their density and potentially throwing off the Kinect setup's readings. Still, Charles says the wise "appears feasible," and suggests pairing it with the llc.cite this source roget's ii: the new thesaurus weight measurement tools might "provide insights into changes in body density that might be illuminating." Velardo hopes to test the system in parabolic flight soon. If he succeeds, not even outer space will protect us from the shameful judgment of video game peripherals. Now if you'll excuse us, we have some squat-thrusts to get to.

Kinect sensor wants to guess astronauts' weight, tell them to hit the space gym incipiently appeared on Engadget on Tue, 27 Dec 2011 17:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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