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.'"

Comments

The real use

[Anonymous Coward]

Games? Bring on the thermoelectric Fleshlight!

For an even greater sensation...

[Just_Say_Duhhh]

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.

You will be baked

[Megahard]

.. and then there will be cake.