Sep 02, 2008

“A team of Japanese researchers are looking at the next step in immersive gaming, and it just may be ultrasound. The technology adds a sense of tactile feedback to games, without the use of gloves or other devices.” from Gearlog

Wow, now THAT would be cool.  Though, would I really want to actually feel all those sword slashes, bullet wounds and tactical nuclear strikes on my person?  Hmm… Maybe I need to rethink this…  :)

Actually, this reminds me of a PC peripheral that was described roughly 10 years ago – it was a scent generator that was hooked up to your PC and that sat on top of your monitor.  It could generated about 10 different scents and they were working on more.  The idea was that since the sense of smell is the one most closely tied to memory, that it would be an excellent sensory immersion mechanism.  It never really went anywhere, as far as I can tell – maybe it had to do with the fact that people don’t really want to know what hordes of rotting zombies being burned to bits smells like.  *shrug*  Just a thought.  :)