Patent Application
20140244008
Gaming consoles and other computer/mobile device applications are being used to provide fitness and exercise challenges. Users can compete with one another and/or against preset goals.
A standard way to measure the result of fitness and exercise is by calories burned. This correlates well with calories consumed; many food products provide calorie information to allow people to quickly assess their intake, which they can balance against the calories burned via physical activities.
However, calories are not particularly good measure in competitive fitness and exercise challenges, in that the amount of calories burned is a biased gauge of effort. In general, the more a person weighs, the more calories that person will burn during a physical activity. Thus, if a heavy person and a light person are doing the same activity for the same duration in a competition, using calories as the measure favors the heavier person, as he or she will burn more calories. In addition to weight, (which is the most influential factor in calories burned), height, age, and gender are other factors that contribute to calories burned.
This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of representative concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used in any way that would limit the scope of the claimed subject matter.
Briefly, various aspects of the subject matter described herein are directed towards a technology in which effort is gauged to allow for more meaningful comparisons in exercise and/or fitness evaluations such as used in competitions. In one aspect, there is described sensing a physical activity, recording effort data representing effort used in performing the physical activity, including computing the effort data based at least in part on intensity and time duration of performing the physical activity, and using the effort data in a comparison.
In one aspect, a competition component is coupled to a plurality of computing devices via one or more network connections. The competition component is configured to receive data from each computing device corresponding to a participating user in a competition, including effort data that represents an amount of physical activity exerted by the participating user over a time duration, in which the amount is based at least in part upon intensity of the physical activity. The competition component processes the effort data to determine which participating user has exerted the most effort with respect to the competition.
In one aspect, there is described obtaining identity data of a user. Effort duration data corresponding to effort exerted for a time duration with respect to at least one physical activity performed by the user is recorded, in which the effort exerted for each activity includes a factor representative of an intensity of that activity. The effort data and the identity data are output to a remote entity for use in a comparison against other effort duration data.
Other advantages may become apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the drawings.
The present invention is illustrated by way of example and not limited in the accompanying figures in which like reference numerals indicate similar elements and in which:
Various aspects of the technology described herein are generally directed towards gauging effort with respect to a physical activity (e.g., in a fitness/exercise and/or gaming environment), in a way that is substantially independent of height, weight, age, and gender (HWAG). To this end, a concept of work is used that reflects the true effort relative to a user (e.g., a game player), such that no one has a significant advantage because of that person's HWAG properties. The effort data is based at least in part on the intensity of each activity along with the time duration of performing that activity. Thus, as used herein, “effort data” and/or “effort duration data” represent a person's effort exerted with respect to performing at least one physical activity, in which effort data is substantially independent of weight, and possibly other HWAG properties.
In one aspect, effort duration is described as a measure of effort/work. The effort duration measure may be used to allow different people to compete against others and/or against established targets/goals substantially equally, independent of a person's HWAG properties. As will be understood, this allows for a number of physical activity scenarios that are heretofore not available (or if available generally unfair) with calorie-based measures, including gaming competitions, medical/therapeutic applications, equating the effort expended in different physical activities with one another, and so forth.
It should be understood that any of the examples herein are non-limiting. For instance, a gaming console for competition is described as one technology that uses effort as a measure of physical activity, however other devices and applications, such as mobile devices, personal computers, and possibly dedicated devices such as medical monitors may benefit from the technology described herein. As such, the present invention is not limited to any particular embodiments, aspects, concepts, structures, functionalities or examples described herein. Rather, any of the embodiments, aspects, concepts, structures, functionalities or examples described herein are non-limiting, and the present invention may be used various ways that provide benefits and advantages in computing and gaming technology, and fitness and physiology in general.
With respect to sensing effort, a Kinect™-based sensor can track skeletal movements that correspond to physical activity, and can be mapped to a MET value (where MET is metabolic equivalent, comprising published values for various activities), for example. Other sensors may be built into or coupled to the exercise equipment itself, e.g., a treadmill can provide its incline and speed as data (or have such data sensed), a stationary bicycle can provide its pedaling speed and resistance as data, and so forth.
The effort module 104 includes effort processing logic 112, which as described herein, allows various programs (e.g., applications 114) to collect a consistent measure of the user's effort with respect to performing an activity (or set of activities). It is feasible for each application to implement its own effort processing logic, however having an effort module 104 that is shared by applications provides for consistency, which is useful in competitions and challenges. For example, a “rowing” fitness application may use the effort module 104 to compute how much effort a user has exerted in the same way that a “calisthenics” application does. Thus, overall effort may be consistently combined for a user over different activities, and/or effort may be compared across different activities. Further, the application may be a game in which the recorded representation of the effort corresponds to success in the game, e.g., the more effort the user expends, the more virtual places a user gets to visit in the game. As another example, effort of the player (e.g., average, or for a recent session) also may be used in a game (title) to determine a game character's power level or statistics. For example, in a boxing game, the power level of a player's boxer may be based off the weekly effort total of the player.
Also represented in
For example, the server-side may include a multiplayer competition component 116 that allows users to compete with one another, including as direct competitors or with a “crowd” of other users. Competitions may be arranged and/or managed for fairness or the like, e.g., users may be matched with one another based upon age, interests, available time and so forth, so that, for example, a full-time mom can compete with other full-time moms instead of users who have far more time to dedicate to a competition.
A server leaders/ranking component 117 may be provided, whereby users can see a leaderboard of where they stand relative to other users with respect to their effort. Individual activities and overall total activity may be ranked, and leaderboards may be real time totaled overall, and/or over some time periods such as daily, weekly, monthly and so on. As described below, via periodic or other (e.g., on-demand and/or achievement-based) uploads, a user may be able to see his or her ranking or rankings relative to others in real-time or near real-time.
Another component represented in
A server-side “economy” component 119 may provide for incentives and/or rewards based upon achievements and/or competition results. Where legal, the economy component 119 may facilitate ways for competitors I participants to wager between themselves. Compensation also may be in game or in competition, e.g., rewards, points “goods” or the like that are desirable to have during the game or competition, or for future ones. Note that to prevent fraud where rewards and/or other compensation are provided, verification of identity and other mechanisms may be used to ensure that the correct person is actually participating, and that the person is actually putting forth the effort (and not just electromechanically simulating the activity, for example).
As can be readily appreciated, one or more other server-side components (represented by block 120) may be provided to facilitate individual and/or group usage of the effort-based data.
Turning to the use of effort duration as a measure of effort, as is known, a common calorie formula is:
calories=MET*(BMR/1440)*duration
where MET is metabolic equivalent, comprising published values, published by various sources, that provide a reasonable estimate of the ratio of a physical activity relative to an at rest “activity” for various activities; (thus, for example, moderate jogging has a higher MET value than slow walking). BMR is basal metabolic rate, a well-known computation corresponding to a person's energy spent while at rest. The value 1440 is the number of minutes in a day.
Effort duration is described herein as:
Effort duration=(1440*calories)/BMR
Effort duration=MET*duration
This effort duration value gives a much more accurate representation of the underlying effort, in that the computed effort is based upon an intensity, e.g., the MET value as a factor, mathematically combined with (e.g., multiplied by) the duration. For example, consider two people with different HWAG properties, corresponding to different BMR's, who each exerted some amount of effort that burned 200 calories, e.g., the BMR's (using a typical well-known formula) for the two people are:
The effort durations for the two people are:
The above computations indicate that Person A had to work much harder to burn the same calories as Person B. Indeed, if Person B had put forth the same effort as person A, namely measured as an effort duration of 148.74 minutes, Person B would have instead burned almost 226 calories. As can be seen, weight, which is the single most influential factor in calories burned, makes calories burned an unfair representation of effort. Instead, effort duration, which is HWAG-independent, may be used to express the effort in terms of any activity for meaningful comparisons between players, whereby everyone has a fair chance at winning. Note that calories may be used as a measure of effort (the effort data), but for a fair competition, each person needs an individual (and typically different) number of calories to burn based on his or her individual HWAG properties, for example.
In addition to allowing for more meaningful comparisons between individuals, effort duration also allows meaningful comparisons between different activities, and for expressing effort in terms of those other activities. The effort duration can be divided by the MET of any activity to determine how much time would be spent doing another activity. As another example, a 36 year old, 177 cm tall male weighing 100 kg who had burned 800 calories would have an effort duration of approximately 503 minutes. Any activity with an established MET value may then be shown to the user as an equivalent, e.g., using some of the example activities mentioned above, this can be shown as so many minutes of walking with crutches, rock climbing, an uphill hike with a certain load, and so on.
Note that the above way to measure effort is substantially HWAG-independent. However, other ways to measure effort may eliminate only some of the HWAG properties, e.g., weight and height; competitions may be then limited to persons of the same other factors, e.g., eliminate weight and height from the effort data measure, and then conduct a competition only between persons of the same gender and age.
Step 304 represents looking up the date or the like of any persisted information for the identified user, such as the HWAG-related data, and the user's current competition data. This data may be maintained locally, or remotely, or some combination thereof. If the HWAG data is recent as evaluated at step 306, the HWAG data is accessed at step 308 and used to generate the BMR of the user at step 312. Note that BMR may be maintained directly. Because a user's HWAG properties can change, particularly weight (and height for a growing user), stale data may be confirmed/updated at step 310. Note that if no persisted data exists for the user, or if a user does not want to use earlier data (e.g., because of a rapid weight change), a user also may directly enter such data as represented by the dashed line from step 302 to 310.
Step 312 represents generating the BMR of the user. BMR may be used for other purposes, including calories burned computations. While calories burned is orthogonal to effort duration and not a fair measure of effort in fitness competitions, it may be used in many other ways, and is thus valuable to many users.
Step 314 represents starting the recording of effort for an activity, e.g., corresponding to the application. Step 316 represents computing the effort, which may be an average, a total, and/or another mathematical combination.
Note that the MET value may change during an activity, and thus the effort duration is not necessarily directly proportional to time. For example, a user on a treadmill coupled to the gaming console may start at a low incline and at a low speed, corresponding to one MET value, and then increase the incline and/or the speed, corresponding to a different MET value. Indeed, with treadmills (or stationary bicycles) that automatically change incline (or pedal resistance) to simulate actual terrain, the MET values may change often.
Also represented at step 316 is the (optional) reporting of current effort data, e.g., to the network. Step 316 repeats as often as appropriate until the physical activity (or activities) are done, and thus such reporting may, for example, be periodic, e.g., every ten seconds, at a milestone, e.g., every 100 feet climbed, and/or on demand, e.g., when a user wants to see his or her status. This allows a user (as well as other users) to see relative progress, such as in rankings. For example, a user who runs faster can see himself or herself pass other runners, including currently racing runners, and/or see total distance relative to other runners' total distances, even runners not currently running.
Reporting also may be used to provide players with a view of what game modes, or moments in a game resulted in the most effort. This may be particularly useful in post-analysis, e.g., telling the player where his or her effort lagged, or was the best, and so forth. Comparisons against previous sessions may be made as well.
Step 318 represents ending the recording of effort, such as when the user stops the activity. Step 320 reports the total effort to the network or the like, (in cases where the optional reporting is not being done or the activity ends before the next report was submitted). Step 322 represents repeating the process for another activity if desired, e.g., a user may move from doing pushups to doing sit-ups as the next phase of a calisthenics application.
As can be seen, competitions and challenges are one way that effort may be used to measure a person's accomplishments. Another way to use effort is in medical and similar health scenarios. For example, a doctor or therapist may prescribe that a person put forth some amount of effort in injury rehabilitation. Insurance companies may reduce premiums with proof of consistent effort. Via the network, the doctor, therapist or insurance company can remotely monitor the effort put forth, without necessarily needing heart rate monitoring equipment or the like.
It can be readily appreciated that the above-described implementation and its alternatives may be implemented on any suitable computing device, including a gaming system, personal computer, tablet, DVR, set-top box, Smartphone, wearable lifestyle devices and/or the like. Combinations of such devices are also feasible when multiple such devices are linked together. For purposes of description, a gaming (including media) system is described as one exemplary operating environment hereinafter.
The CPU 402, the memory controller 403, and various memory devices are interconnected via one or more buses (not shown). The details of the bus that is used in this implementation are not particularly relevant to understanding the subject matter of interest being discussed herein. However, it will be understood that such a bus may include one or more of serial and parallel buses, a memory bus, a peripheral bus, and a processor or local bus, using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, such architectures can include an Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, a Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, an Enhanced ISA (EISA) bus, a Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and a Peripheral Component Interconnects (PCI) bus also known as a Mezzanine bus.
In one implementation, the CPU 402, the memory controller 403, the ROM 404, and the RAM 406 are integrated onto a common module 414. In this implementation, the ROM 404 is configured as a flash ROM that is connected to the memory controller 403 via a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus or the like and a ROM bus or the like (neither of which are shown). The RAM 406 may be configured as multiple Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic RAM (DDR SDRAM) modules that are independently controlled by the memory controller 403 via separate buses (not shown). The hard disk drive 408 and the portable media drive 409 are shown connected to the memory controller 403 via the PCI bus and an AT Attachment (ATA) bus 416. However, in other implementations, dedicated data bus structures of different types can also be applied in the alternative.
A three-dimensional graphics processing unit 420 and a video encoder 422 form a video processing pipeline for high speed and high resolution (e.g., High Definition) graphics processing. Data are carried from the graphics processing unit 420 to the video encoder 422 via a digital video bus (not shown). An audio processing unit 424 and an audio codec (coder/decoder) 426 form a corresponding audio processing pipeline for multi-channel audio processing of various digital audio formats. Audio data are carried between the audio processing unit 424 and the audio codec 426 via a communication link (not shown). The video and audio processing pipelines output data to an A/V (audio/video) port 428 for transmission to a television or other display. In the illustrated implementation, the video and audio processing components 420, 422, 424, 426 and 428 are mounted on the module 414.
In the example implementation depicted in
Memory units (MUs) 450(1) and 450(2) are illustrated as being connectable to MU ports “A” 452(1) and “B” 452(2), respectively. Each MU 450 offers additional storage on which games, game parameters, and other data may be stored. In some implementations, the other data can include one or more of a digital game component, an executable gaming application, an instruction set for expanding a gaming application, and a media file. When inserted into the console 401, each MU 450 can be accessed by the memory controller 403.
A system power supply module 454 provides power to the components of the gaming system 400. A fan 456 cools the circuitry within the console 401.
An application 460 comprising machine instructions is typically stored on the hard disk drive 408. When the console 401 is powered on, various portions of the application 460 are loaded into the RAM 406, and/or the caches 410 and 412, for execution on the CPU 402. In general, the application 460 can include one or more program modules for performing various display functions, such as controlling dialog screens for presentation on a display (e.g., high definition monitor), controlling transactions based on user inputs and controlling data transmission and reception between the console 401 and externally connected devices.
The gaming system 400 may be operated as a standalone system by connecting the system to high definition monitor, a television, a video projector, or other display device. In this standalone mode, the gaming system 400 enables one or more players to play games, or enjoy digital media, e.g., by watching movies, or listening to music. However, with the integration of broadband connectivity made available through the network interface 432, gaming system 400 may further be operated as a participating component in a larger network gaming community or system.
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative constructions, certain illustrated embodiments thereof are shown in the drawings and have been described above in detail. It should be understood, however, that there is no intention to limit the invention to the specific forms disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, alternative constructions, and equivalents falling within the spirit and scope of the invention.
