Researchers Create Radio Controlled Humans

utherdoul writes "Say goodbye to remote-controlled cars, say hello to remote-controlled people. Forbes.com (disclosure: I work there) sent a lucky reporter (further disclosure: I am jealous it was not me) to the SIGGRAPH computer graphics conference in Los Angeles, where NTT researchers debuted a device designed to exploit the effects of Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation. As the story explains, when a weak electrical pulse is delivered to the mastoid behind your ear, your body responds by shifting your balance towards it. If the current is strong enough, it not only throws you off balance, but alters the course of your movement. Reading about it really doesn't do it justice -- you have to check out the crazy video of a remotely controlled woman. (Realvideo)"

Comments

This is NOT remote control

[Elbows]

Despite what the summary would imply, this device doesn't take over your body and completely control your movements. I was at SIGGRAPH and tried it out -- it just throws off your sense of balance, making it hard to walk in a straight line. The effect isn't strong enough to make you fall down, and you could probably learn to compensate for it pretty quickly if you tried.

The effect is good enough for video games, though -- as part of the demo they put you in front of a driving sim, and use the device to simulate the centripetal force when you go around corners. It was pretty cool.

For most people, it seemed to be painless, but after a little while my skin started to sting where the electrodes where attached.

Re:This is NOT remote control

[ameline]

I was there, and I tried it.

I have a fair amount of experience throwing off my vestibular canals and ignoring them (pilot, flew aerobatics on the competition circuit for a few years). I tried to walk in a straight line while the device was trying to have me do otherwise. It was *extremely* difficult, but not impossible.

The feeling of lateral acelleration (where none was actually present) was very convincing.

I also thought this was one of the cooler things in the emerging technologies section at siggraph.