I’ve started running again after going a long time avoiding it in favor of biking. Turns out I enjoy it more than I thought I did, though it’s certainly a lot more fun running with someone else.
For those times when I can’t run with someone else (for instance, when I’m stuck at home with the kids) it would be nice to jazz up the usually-dull running on the treadmill. Running while staring at a wall is pretty boring, you know.
Then I remembered how cool I’ve always thought it would be to build my own flight simulator. Why not apply this concept to the treadmill? What if I could connect a mouse or other control to my treadmill and use it to drive a moving Google Maps image on a screen in front of me?
What practical value would it be to recreate my neighborhood on my treadmill? None whatsoever. It’s completely pointless, but that doesn’t matter. Hackers don’t do things because they’re practical, hackers do things because they can!
Looks like Panasonic has had the same idea and displayed it at CES last year. I wonder how difficult it would be to build one myself?