Tamagotchi, an invention that earned its inventors an Ig Nobel Prize, is now available to the public free, in the form of a downloadable app. The 1997 Ig Nobel Prize for economics was awarded to Akihiro Yokoi of Wiz Company in Chiba, Japan and Aki Maita [pictured here] of Bandai Company in Tokyo, the father and mother of Tamagotchi, for diverting millions of person-hours of work into the husbandry of virtual pets.
This video explains, to a limited degree, the news: