We Talked to the Inventors of the "Tamagotchi" Vape That Dies If You Stop Puffing

Image by Rebecca Xun / Lucia Camacho Devices Earlier this month, we blogged that participants at a New York University (NYU) event called the "Stupid Hackathon" had created something remarkable: a vape-embedded Tamagotchi-style virtual pet that dies if the user fails to keep puffing. We got in touch with the inventors behind the Vape-o-Gotchi: NYC-based romantic partners Rebecca Xun and Lucia Camacho, who explained to Futurism in an interview that their project began as an idea that they saw circulating online — and they decided to make it into a cursed reality. The idea for a vape-embedded Tamagotchi device has "floated around a lot on Twitter in the past," said Xun. "But I pitched it independently to Lucia last year as a potential project we could work on together." Xun started vaping last year, she said, as a way to begin the process of quitting cigarettes. She also has a "bunch of friends who vape," many of whom "are very attached to their vapes." But she's not naive about vapi ... Read full article.