Gametrak Controller Wins Award
Philipp Lenssen writes "According to German Spiegel Online, the Gametrak controller by In2Games just won the "Best of GC" award at the Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany. Cyber-glove Gametrak is announced to launch across Europe next month for the Playstation 2. Once the right software is released (fighting game DarkWind comes first) you should be able to punch opponents, use golf clubs, dance around, and bounce virtual basketballs. A demo video is available."
For those who can't get the video, it looks like the tracking system is pretty simple (and likely pretty robust) - each cord connecting a velcro glove to the base station is on a pulley (hence the wheel-like things on either side of the station), This gives the system distance data. To get angle data, the cords come out of the base station through joystick-like nozzles.
It mentions it can get 1mm accuracy within a 3m cube - I wonder what the latency is like, or how much 'pull' there is on the gloves (I wonder if future versions could change the amount of pull in order to simulate weight).
Good luck to these guys - it looks like it could actually work well unlike some other alternative-input devices (*cough* P5 glove *cough), and if it works with a PS2 > PC converter, I'll be getting one to muck around with as soon as I can.