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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.'"
OK, here comes the flood of post about...errmm...adult gaming. Remember, it says, "these solid-state devices are easy to incorporate into objects of reasonable size,"
I need trepanation like I need a hole in the head.
Yes, because when you don't want to sweat, you turn up the heat.
Games? Bring on the thermoelectric Fleshlight!
Try making the thermoelectrics demonstrate the thermal grill illusion and you can convince the holder that he's been burned. I touched one of these at the Museum of Science & Industry, and I still remember it decades later.
I need trepanation like I need a hole in the head.
As I'm hit and fall into the pit of lava, the safety overrides fail and suddenly, yeah, my peripherals are trying their best to get me up to a thousand degrees C.
THIS is why I continue to play Nethack.
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
The controller with pain feedback in Never Say Never Again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUw9BJS06NI
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Hence, nobody wants a heated controller, but you might want a cooled one (to cure sweaty palms).
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
.. and then there will be cake.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Wouldn't it be lovely if the controller could deal electric shocks? Or pretend-drown the player? "Because we can" isn't always sufficient justification.
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.
Make a game that comes with one of these:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/07/27/1619255/Heat-Ray-Gun-Fails-Final-Test-Nixed-From-War
or a waldo-controlled sword for the fantasy MMORPG otaku.
I think Joe The Dragon tried to rape a small child once.
Random, vague, unverifiable claims are fun.
... it's incorporated into a whole-body gaming suit. The old "feeling on the back of the neck" when you're being watched (at least above level 6) and the "something evil this way comes" chill in the 'nads for approaching undead ...
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
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
We gonna go back to smell-o-vision next?
This isn't even remotely appealing to me.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Oh.
I guess reading the TFS helps.
From the sound of it, you'd need a heatsink on the controller or maybe a fan (or both). I'd prefer less moving/delicate parts and to never have to worry about the controller overheating. Also, given the move to wireless controllers, there's battery life to think about.
They already exist, game controllers with fans in them: http://www.google.com/search?q=Logitech+ChillStream
In a cheap PS3 controller I use on my PC I cut out a hole and added a small 5v fan onto the back, works quite well but needs more tinkering to get the right airholes to keep hands cool.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Teal'c almost died in something like this
Sounds like the same sort of crazy Korean idea that fan death is.
Ealier this year I bought a couple of standard sized 100watt peltier devices out of curiosity. When you feed them enough amps at 12v they can produce some amazing amount of heat, but to use them as a cooling device you need some way of removing all that heat it produces, large CPU heatsink setups are almost good enough but they're bulky & heavy.
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
Better quality http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gIqdmVsRAc
I guess this old drum printer I still have connected must be REALLY cutting edge technology. It's on fire!
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
I'm not sure how you could really add it to a controller as since it's a heat pump. The top of the controller will get hot while the bottom cold (or vise-versa). A suit might be interesting since unlike a controller you would only be exposed to one side of the TEC.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
The more fps you generate, the more heat the cpu and gpu put out.
Or all you guys into fapping at porn, just put your laptop on your ... um ... lap. "No pain, no gain", right?
I thought SIGGRAPH was the Association for Computin Machinery's Special Interest Group for Graphics. However, last week's story about computing the sound of fracturing materials, and this story about replicating heat - apparently SIGGRAPH has upped their game. They are now the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
My system is AMD-based. I ALREADY feel the heat.
You kind of say that's nice, and never really see it used anywhere again.
I liked the haptic camera: it pushes some rods into you palm depending on the camera illumination. I've heard of developing this for blind people. But its easy to sense these patterns after just a few seconds.
I was reminded of how awesome NBA Jam was, but how painful it might be if they used this and the announcer said "He's on fire!!!"
Why, for the love of god, is this not tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"?
If *any* topic recently has deserved it, this is it.
Cooking Mama cooks you!
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.
I think this sounds like fun, and I agree with most posters that smell would be better, but I also agree with joe the dragon that there are dangers. The danger with smells is that they are immensely powerful emotional and sub-conscious triggers and the number of people that have trouble differentiating games from reality (presently an almost non existent minority) would skyrocket.
As far as this technology goes the dangers are not actually random, vague or unverifiable. Despite the post above being so. Any commercial technology that produces heat has examples that have malfunctioned and caused injury. Things that rapidly heat up are unsafe and that is a verifiable fact. Try looking up auto recalls on seat heaters in cars for example. Look up the fire departments' statistics on house fires caused by heater malfunctions and misuse
Honestly I really hate excess heat in any kind of computer controller. My old Mac "Wallstreet" G3 laptop had the trackpad button get really hot, and that was a major reason I stopped using the machine.
I've used fancy mice with lights that would heat up, and it's just not a good feeling.
I generate quite enough heat on my own thanks very much, so the only thing that sounds useful here would be permanent cooling, and that's going to require a fan to get rid of the heat after you pull it off with the peltier.
But people already make game controllers with fans to keep your hands cool and dry if you need that sort of thing.
Honestly this sounds like the dumbest idea since 3D movies.
G.
For my part, I fit the "sweaty geek"-cliché all too well when the weather starts getting warm (except I shower and stuff). Having some form of active cooling in my keyboard/gamepad/mouse would easily be far more awesome than heating because after a few rounds of high paced console gaming, I tend to get somewhat sweaty palms. Something like this perhaps?
Sounds like the same sort of crazy Korean idea that fan death is.
Have you never used a keyboard in the winter? Did you not notice how your cold fingers do not move as fast and as precise anymore. You will see the same effect on your mouse hand just not as drastic.
Everyone who buys Wild Hunt will receive 16 specially prepared DLCs absolutely for free, regardless of platform.
My hands already are sweaty when I'm playing, more heat coming from the controller is NOT something I'm looking for.
~Syberz
The design for this is two giant hotplates but instead of having temperature controls there are all of the buttons and controls from a 360 controller. We hope that we can teach kids not to touch hot things like stoves. Hey, maybe parents could be given a remote and if their child refuses to quit playing video games or move out of their basement, they could jack the heat up so the kid either melts his hands to the controller (which he would likely be happy about) or put the controller down.
Otherwise I'd have to wait until a couple patches are released for any game that supports this. Many games are released with a range of bugs, as we already know. And I predict future bugs will include new features like: burning/freezing the skin off your hands.
It's true, in university I often had to code on a lab computer (I was poor so a laptop was out of the question, I just had my PDA and my desktop PC - then the mobo died, I couldn't find a replacement and I couldn't afford to overhaul the PC, so it was just my PDA and whatever I could find to use), and of course the computer labs were full people chatting on MSN and wasting time, but there was one place where I could always get a seat: Right under the output of the AC unit. Folks from around here don't like temperatures under 24C or so and would have considered the frosty temps under the AC vents uninhabitable to humans, but having lived in Canada, sitting under the vent would be no big deal, so I got my seat and would code for 4-6 hour stretches sometimes.
The problem is my fingers would get very cold. So cold my fingernails would turn blue. They would become slow and imprecise. I could feel that it took more effort to move them. Having warmer fingers definitely helped would have helped.
Also when I used to play Q3A I'd notice that my fingers would be sluggish until they warmed up a bit, even in hot rooms.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This would put a whole new spin on the Immolate spell in World of Warcraft...
I do feel the heat from my gaming.
I7 proc, dual vid cards in sli.
Shit gets hot.
Plus it's summer, and I don't have no air conditioning.
What I don't want, is more fucking heat.
Be seeing you...