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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.'"
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.
It's not the size of your joystick that counts, it's how HOT it gets!
Truth be told, I have not yet been able to verify my hypothesis on this matter with a willing test subject.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
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
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.. and then there will be cake.
I eat only the real part of complex carbohydrates.
Yeah, haha, genitals.
Personally, I'd be more interested in alternate sensory input: embedded (or glued for a less permanent effect) magnets and er... vibrating compass belt.
Ideas for gameplay connect? Belt might be neat for spider sense....
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.
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
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
My system is AMD-based. I ALREADY feel the heat.
Cooking Mama cooks you!
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.
TECs can "switch sides" depending on the direction of current flow. They are horribly inefficient; but that(along with their small size and solid-stateness) is one of the things that makes them fun to play with.
Connect the DC source one way, and this is the cold side, connect it the other way, now that is the hot side. It's the reason that they are generally used in the cheezy little heater/cooler units you can get for in-car use.
Finally! Someone besides myself who posts something related to sensory substitution/augmentation! ^^
The compass belt would be a cool add-on to a lot of games. Make one that works like the linked one (with real world input) but add a Bluetooth interface so you can also get information from games and such. From what I've read about the (crazy) level of integration with these types of devices, I'd bet something like that would add a very decent upgrade to the sense of immersion (if not exactly useful information) to many games.
What about Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation? I tried this with a 9V battery and a couple of makeshift electrodes fashioned from aluminum foil and duct tape. Ok, so I had no control of the current being passed through my head (which I believe should be <1,5mA) but when I popped on the electrodes, stood up with my eyes closed and flipped the switch.. Hell, I almost fell into my TV, and my friend who tried it actually did end up on the floor. It really does tip your balance in the direction of the anode, and I can imagine using this with f.ex. driving or flying simulator type games would be quite the experience.
Perhaps a headband or hat of some sort with proximity sensors and small button vibrators? Something like the Haptic Radar project only discreet enough that us nerds and geeks at least would consider wearing it now and then even when not gaming (because sensomotoric correlations are the key to integration). Like with the compass belt idea, add Bluetooth and the ability for games to override the real-world information. Perhaps an added sense of distance (just like the headband works in the real world) to walls and objects in an FPS game?