Jacket Lets You Feel the Movies

sp3cialk79 writes "Researchers from Philips Electronics plan to describe a jacket they have lined with vibration motors to study the effects of touch on a movie viewer's emotional response to what the characters are experiencing. 'People don't realize how sensitive we are to touch, although it is the first sense that fetuses develop in the womb,' says Paul Lemmens, a Philips senior scientist who will be presenting research done using the jacket at the IEEE-sponsored 2009 World Haptics Conference in Salt Lake City. The jacket contains 64 independently controlled actuators distributed across the arms and torso. The actuators are arrayed in 16 groups of four and linked along a serial bus; each group shares a microprocessor. The actuators draw so little current that the jacket could operate for an hour on its two AA batteries even if the system was continuously driving 20 of the motors simultaneously."

Comments

I think I just threw up in my mouth a little...

[Em Emalb]

Cause I just envisioned someone wearing this jacket in a seedy "adult" theater.

Re:I think I just threw up in my mouth a little...

[gnick]

This is just the field marketable prototype. The money-maker won't be the jacket - It will be the boxer-briefs.

Re:I think I just threw up in my mouth a little...

[somersault]

Ok, I always instantly thing of porn...

With everything... ;)

Oh hey Hurricane78, fancy seeing you here! Your mom called earlier - told me she packed your lunchbox last night but forgot to give it to you, and it's still in the kitchen if you want to go pick it up. Oh, she also said you'll have to go in the back door as the front has jammed shut.

Caution Required.

[senorpoco]

Do not wear during during Die Hard.

Re:Caution Required.

[Saint Gerbil]

Or Brokeback mountain.

PeeWee Herman

[AmigaHeretic]

This jacket sounds expensive, but the pants are half off!

Novel uses

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

The single best use of this device would be to constrict and asphyxiate anyone in the cinema who insists on talking or fidgeting or generally disrupting others during the film. I would be especially in favour of its use on disruptive children, of all ages.

Re:Send it back

[Chyeld]

Yeah but that's alright, the first movies that implement it will do it the same cheap way they did the 3d in Superman Returns. The jacket will only work for three one minute scenes in the entire movie.

Games?

[Quothz]

A similar jacket may make an interesting game feedback device.

The thump of a bullet hitting your back in a shooter would be nifty directional feedback. A tap on the shoulder in the dark of a horror game could be startling. The grip on your arm of a frightened refugee you're escorting through a combat zone, an opponent trying to tickle you in a fighting game as a distraction. And of course the same feedback scenarios mentioned in TFA, just in games rather than movies.

Of course, the cost would probably relegate such a thing to a niche market, but it'd be fun component t'play around with in a game's design.

Re:Games?

[jlf278]

"The thump of a bullet hitting your back in a shooter would be nifty directional feedback"

Yeah, that's like the first thing they teach you in the Army. Always turn your back to the enemy. If a hostile is dumb enough to shoot you, you can easily extrapolate their location from the force and angle of penetration.

Re:Send it back

[PotatoFarmer]

...which would never happen.

...until Michael Bay releases Shaky Cam 2: The Explosioning, just to prove you wrong.

I think you're grossly underestimating popular cinema's appetite for overstimulation.