This week’s Feedback column (that I write) in New Scientist magazine has four segments. Here are bits of each of them: Fossil or beehive? — … And the snideness? That isn’t unusual, either. Nor is it new. In 1934, the Journal of the Washington Academy of Sciences printed a report called “The supposed fossil ear of maize from Cuzco, Peru”. Quantum […]
Tag: Tamagotchi
A look back at the prize-winning anti-car-jacking flamethrower
Charl Fourie and Michelle Wong were awarded the 1999 Ig Nobel Peace Prize, for inventing an automobile burglar alarm consisting of a detection circuit and a flamethrower. (Patent WO/1999/032331, “A Security System for a Vehicle“) Now, in 2023, The South African news organization takes a look back at one of South Africa’s most spectacular but least financially rewarding inventions. […]
Ig Nobel Prize-winning Tamagotchi returns in yet another new form
“Not for nothing in 1997, the creators of the Tamagotchi were winners of the Ig Nobel Prize in Economics: Akihiro Yokoi, of the Wiz Company, of Chiba (Japan), and Aki Maita, of the Bandai Company (Tokyo), father and mother of the Tamagochi, “for turning millions of work hours into lost time taking care of virtual […]
The Triumphal Return of Tiny (Ig Nobel Prize-winning) Tamagotchi
Bandai America is bringing the nostalgia-infused virtual pet craze of “Tamagotchi” to a 21st century audience with “Tamagotchi On,” a revamped take on the keychain-sized plastic egg toy that launches May 13. So reports Variety, the show business newspaper, which goes on to give some historical context: Tamagotchi was originally invented by Bandai’s Aki Maita. She […]
Tamagotchi, time-wasting, Pokémon Go, and the economy
Tamagotchi, whose inventors were awarded the Ig Nobel Prize for economics in 1997, is celebrated by Jaime Rubio Hancock, writing in El Pais: Does not anyone remember the Tamagotchi? 6 sets which we found as harmful as Pokémon Go …This Japanese toy Bandai hooked millions of children in 1996. It was not more than a small […]
Ig Nobel Prize-winning Tamagotchi now made free to the public
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 […]