I've written before about gaming helmets and vests that let you feel game impacts. But why limit it to games? How would you like to feel the impact of an on-screen explosion? This week Philips presented research called "A Body–conforming Tactile Jacket to Enrich Movie Viewing" at the IEEE-sponsored 2009 World Haptics Conference 2009, in Salt Lake City.The jacket contains 64 independently controlled actuators arrayed in 16 groups of four and distributed across the arms and torso. The arrays are linked along a serial bus with each group if four sharing a microprocessor.
But the actual purpose for the jacket, according to the researchers, isn't so you can feel the pain when say, Wolverine gets slammed by Sabretooth, but rather, to investigate emotional immersion.
No, they want you to feel fear, anxiety, and other emotions during the movie. The jacket is capable of "causing a shiver to go up the viewer’s spine and creating the feeling of tension in the limbs." It can even simulate an elevated heartbeat.
Wait, but can't a good movie do that? I remember the first time I saw Aliens, I was on the edge of my seat, with my heart racing through several of the scenes. Don't tell me: this means even lame movies will be able to get my heart racing.
At any rate, there is an obvious use for this technology, that might require actuators in say, the nether regions of your clothing. The AVN, at least, might look favorably on this. When asked about possibly creating pants with the same features, Paul Lemmens, a Philips senior scientist said:
... no, but that the possible applications of this technology are limitless and that the emotion-inducing actuators could go anywhere.
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