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Thermoelectrics Could Let You Feel the Heat In Games
myshadows writes "Tech Review has an interesting article on how Tokyo Metropolitan University researchers have been able to give a sensory addition to gaming peripherals — namely, temperature. 'As the range of interactions with digital environments expands, it's logical to ask what's next: Smell-o-vision has been on the horizon for something like 50 years, but there's a dark horse stalking this race: thermoelectrics. Based on the Peltier effect, these solid-state devices are easy to incorporate into objects of reasonable size, i.e. video game controllers. In this configuration, just announced at the 2010 SIGGRAPH conference, a pair of thermoelectric surfaces on either side of a controller rapidly heat up or cool down in order to simulate appropriate conditions in a virtual environment.'"
The devices TFA references are based on the Peltier effect which pumps heat from one side of the device to the other. When the direction of current flow through the device is reversed, the direction of heat transfer is also reversed.
Moving heat away from one location is more commonly referred to as 'cooling', so a single device integrated in the controller would be able to both heat and cool the surface of the controller depending on the polarity of the applied current.
Some people have the circulation in their fingers and toes close off when their skin gets cold, which results in ischemia followed by inflammation once the circulation returns. Repeated events cause skin damage, connective tissue atrophy, and eventually you might lose your fingers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raynaud's_disease
Better quality http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gIqdmVsRAc
Games? Bring on the thermoelectric Fleshlight!
May I introduce you to the Real Touch. Most definitely NSFW.
Nope, more than 100W (okay, okay, nitpicking about "produce" noted), because you have the resistively dissipated input power, but also the heat that's pumped from the cold side -- and if the temperature differential is low, that can be quite a bit.
You are almost certainly thinking of "Journey to Wild Divine"...
A bit on the woo-tastic side(Deepak Chopra is usually a bad sign); but I certainly don't know of any other myst-like biofeedback games.
Someone has also hacked together an OSS driver for the biofeedback peripheral, in case you prefer stats to swamis.