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Comments: 102 + - Hardware: Thermoelectrics Could Let You Feel the Heat In Games on Thursday July 29, @06:03PM
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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.'"
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The real use (Score:5, Insightful)
Games? Bring on the thermoelectric Fleshlight!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Games? Bring on the thermoelectric Fleshlight!
May I introduce you to the Real Touch [realtouch.com]. Most definitely NSFW.
For an even greater sensation... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
This would be an ideal research ground for the philosophical testing of pain without any long term real physical consequences. I wonder if one could get used to the pain signals after a while.
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This would be an ideal research ground for the philosophical testing of pain without any long term real physical consequences. I wonder if one could get used to the pain signals after a while.
Yes you can get used to rather quick if you tough it out,
Yes I've done it..
Yes it is a cool story
I'm not your bro.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Only if you are human [wikipedia.org].
Re: (Score:2)
No, I meant the latter. Qualia and all that.
What could possibly go wrong? (Score:4, Funny)
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.
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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.
The controller suddenly welds itself to your hand! Do you want your possessions identified?
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I continue to play Rogue, because something like this is probably already built into Nethack...
Teal'c almost died in something like this (Score:2)
Teal'c almost died in something like this
Reminded of the videogame scene: James Bond NSNA? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUw9BJS06NI [youtube.com]
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You will be baked (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You will be baked (Score:4, Funny)
The cake is a lie.
Parent
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how would adding and removing words from a work of fiction be correcting it?
Electric charge (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Pain as negative reinforcement usually slows down learning, medieval superstitions aside, because it makes you hesitant to explore the parameter space.
I have a better idea (Score:2)
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 [slashdot.org]
or a waldo-controlled sword for the fantasy MMORPG otaku.
It really doesn't count until (Score:2)
Raynaud's sufferers better turn it off (Score:4, Informative)
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 [wikipedia.org]
Wow, what's next? (Score:2)
We gonna go back to smell-o-vision next?
This isn't even remotely appealing to me.
Ahead of the game (Score:2)
But it's a heat pump... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
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You're missing the point. They are a pump that moves heat from one side to the other - so if you try and made the underside of a controller cold, the other side of the peltier will get very hot and you'll have to dissipate that somewhere.
Personally I think it's a stupid idea. Who wants to have cold or hot hands whilst playing a game?
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Larger controllers(like serious joysticks) wouldn't even need to change external appearance much. Just make the feet a little taller, to allow a gap around the base for airflow, and shove a CPU cooler and fan on the side that isn't heat-sunk by the gamer.
Smaller items would be ugly(ie. protruding heatsinks, tiny fans whining away, drafts of hot air whistling through little plastic slits) if not done quite elegantly; bu
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A relic from the days when Intel was selling P4"m" as a suitable laptop processor, and laptop cooling systems were still relatively crude. In this case, the actual passive unit isn't bad(it actually has a certain aesthetic charm); but the two 30ish millimeter fans(one to buzz, one to whine) that labored to suck dust through the thing were
We already have PCs that let you feel the heat (Score:2)
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?
SIGGRAPH? (Score:2)
Well actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
My system is AMD-based. I ALREADY feel the heat.
lots of goofy haptic stuff at SIGGRAPH this year (Score:2)
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.
Incorrect Tagging (Score:2)
Why, for the love of god, is this not tagged "whatcouldpossiblygowrong"?
If *any* topic recently has deserved it, this is it.
In Soviet Russia, (Score:2, Funny)
Hot Hands. Yuck. (Score:2)
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.
Bu
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Yes, because when you don't want to sweat, you turn up the heat.
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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.
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Oh.
I guess reading the TFS helps.
From the sound of it [wikipedia.org], 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.
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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.
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Sounds like the same sort of crazy Korean idea that fan death is.
Re:Watch where you put that! (Score:5, Funny)
Truth be told, I have not yet been able to verify my hypothesis on this matter with a willing test subject.
Parent
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Yeah, haha, genitals.
Personally, I'd be more interested in alternate sensory input: embedded (or glued for a less permanent effect) magnets [wired.com] and er... vibrating compass belt [wired.com].
Ideas for gameplay connect? Belt might be neat for spider sense....
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
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 informat
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Eh... call me cheap but I don't want to have my consoles yelling at me to refill various scent cartridges. I had enough of that with effin' inkjets so I'll pass on the Smell-O-Vision.
Plus I don't really feel the need to be smelling charred flesh (man, animal, or alien) or rubble or burning tires and car exhaust or... hell, I don't know, Bowsers flame breath.
I guess having a fan controlled by the system would be neat for outdoorsy games (WiiSports or motorcycle games, etc.) but still have a hard time believ
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
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 [github.com] for the biofeedback peripheral, in case you prefer stats to swamis.
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Plus I don't really feel the need to be smelling charred flesh (man, animal, or alien) or rubble or burning tires and car exhaust or... hell, I don't know, Bowsers flame breath.
Does no one remember the Leisure Suit Larry with the scratch-and-sniff card? It was hilarious. It would suggest that there would be some horrible smell, then add a twist to make the smells unexpectedly pleasant - not wanting to actually annoy customers.
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