Off the News

If you need exercise, there’s an app for that

Health experts warn that our kids are not getting enough exercise because they’ve replaced playing outdoors with video games. It’s why many educators stress the important of physical education in schools — at least the kids are getting some regular physical activity.

So it was a little jarring to see, in Monday’s Star-Advertiser, a picture of students in a physical education class at Ewa Makai Middle School, sitting on exercise mats, poking at iPads instead of running and jumping and sweating. Why? Teachers at the school are experimenting with educational uses for Apple’s tablet computer. One of those experiments involves filming students doing basic tumbling moves and then scoring and tracking their performance.

Couldn’t this be done with a piece of paper and pencil, rather than a $499 digital device? Sure.

Would it be as much fun? Good question.

Must we do everything ourselves?

The Food Marketing Institute is a lot less bullish on the potential of self-checkout lanes in stores than it was when shops started rolling them out eight or nine years ago. Back then, the institute’s research had nearly 30 percent of retailers experimenting with the systems, in which shoppers scan their own merchandise, swipe their credit cards and bag the stuff.

The shoppers themselves, it seems, have been less than enthused. More recent market studies FMI cited found only 16 percent of supermarket transactions last year were done through the self-serve lanes. On top of that, earlier this month California Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law banning the use of the gear for alcohol sales. Not enough safeguards, the law’s sponsors said.

Could it be that the technology just needs improving? Or is it that we are growing weary of the do-it-yourself ethic, and sometimes we yearn for old-fashioned customer service? Perhaps the world won’t go entirely robotic. Not for a few years, anyway.