vibrations
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Immersit Vibes puts a rumble pack in your sofa
Sitting down: It's such a passive activity. Immersit wants to shake that up, all too literally, with its "vibes" sofa accessory. We've seen Immersit before, when it debuted a much more intense (and more expensive) 4D motion kit. That one actually raised the sofa off the ground for added impact. Vibes, on the other hand is meant to be more accessible, and at around $350, it's within most consumers' reach.
Researchers find a way to listen in on vehicular vibrations
The steady flow of vehicles is noisy enough as it is, but it also gives off a type of noise the human ear can't hear: seismic noise, or the vibration of the ground. Thus, vibrations given off by cars, trucks, trains, and airplanes on the runway among other modes of transportation haven't really been studied in depth -- until now. A team of researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have recently found a way to "hear" those vibrations using 5,300 geophones, screwdriver-like devices used to record ground movements. They placed a geophone every 300 feet in Long Beach for their study and soon realized that thanks to the devices, they could count airplanes and measure their acceleration on the runway and even detect larger vehicles like trucks on a highway. In the future, the same method could be used to monitor traffic, which could then lead to better roads and more road signals where they're most needed. [Image credit: Vincent_St_Thomas/Getty]
Nuclear clocks could be 60x as accurate as atomic counterparts, less prone to errors
For years, atomic clocks have been considered the most accurate devices for tracking the slow march towards obsolescence, a subatomic particle vibrating a given number of times per second with relatively few issues. Now the reliability crown might be passed to the nuclear clock, which in addition to sounding gnarly, could prove to be less susceptible to errors from outside stimuli. It goes like this: although an atomic clock will measure a certain number of vibrations per second, external forces such as ambient electric and magnetic fields affect the electrons used in atomic clocks, causing mishaps. The particles used in nuclear clocks that are measured for vibrations -- and thus timekeeping -- can be excited with a relatively low-energy ultraviolet light, allowing for fewer variations from the aforementioned fields. To wit, Corey Campbell and colleagues at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have devised a scheme that uses lasers to carefully control the spatial orientation of the electron orbits in atoms. A nuclear clock containing a thorium nucleus controlled in this way would drift by just one second in 200 billion years, the team claims. Before nuclear clocks become a reality, researchers must identify the precise frequency of light needed to excite thorium nuclei; but this is what grad students are for, right? [Image credit: University of Colorado / Science Daily]
Tiny, energy-scavenging generators could have big impact
They're far from the only ones working on tiny, energy-harvesting generators, but a group of researchers from the University of Michigan may well be farther along than most. Unlike some similar devices, their generator is able to scavenge even the slightest bits of energy from arbitrary, non-periodic vibrations in everything from bridges to the human body. That may not add up to a huge amount of energy, but the researchers say the generators are able to scrape together enough to keep a wrist watch or a wireless sensor running, or potentially power even a pacemaker by the person's own body movements. Of course, the device likely won't be powering anything beyond the lab anytime soon -- the researchers are still going through various prototypes using different types of energy conversion, and are naturally working to patent it as well.
Tiny generator turns vibrations into electricity
We've seen a couple interesting attempts to convert vibrations and sound into electricity, but the latest design from a team at the University of Southampton is the first we've come across that's designed to be attached to bridges, large buildings, and other structures. The sugar cube-sized generator, a smaller version of a design already commercially available, uses cantilever-mounted magnets to induce a current in a copper coil -- a use of magnets to generate electricity that doesn't violate any laws of thermodynamics, which is always appreciated. The team has successfully used the generator to power an accelerometer (pictured), and tests indicate that the unit can put out up to 46 microwatts of power -- enough to run a pacemaker off the vibrations of the heart itself. No word on commercial availability, but the team seems like they're ready to get shaking fairly soon.
DS Daily: Headphones?
The DS Lite's speakers are certainly nothing to be ashamed of. They deliver fairly crisp sound (Elite Beat Agents is a wonderful example) at a decent volume. Still, is this enough in public places? Or are you simply too embarrassed for some games' vibrational happiness to be transmitted to the people around you?Certainly, headphones can offer a more immersive experience in a game. However, the inconvenience of having to carry around an extra device may outweigh the benefits for some. Do you use headphones, and if you do, are they a quality set? How often do you use them? Let's hear it, people.And if a tree falls in the woods, it totally makes a sound. That question is ridiculous.
P2P software uses hard drives to detect, warn of tsunamis
News outlets and weather stations alike have been searching for more responsive (and foretelling) methods to detect massive storms before they make landfall, and it seems a simple hard drive or two could help out substantially. While certain folks have tried to get fancy and implement mobile warnings to alert citizens of incoming tsunamis, Michael Stadler has devised a P2P software solution that uses plain 'ole hard drive vibration detectors to not only keep the read / write heads aligned, but to feed analytic software those same quaking measurements. By having numerous supernodes compare vibration levels, the software can reject false alarms and substantiate actual threats based on the uniformity of the data -- if an actual tsunami looks to be rushing inward, all connected clients could be immediately informed to brace for impact. While Stadler's software is still in an "experimental stage," it recently caused quite a stir at the Ars Electronica exhibition, and could probably entice a few proactive governments to fund future development. [Via Slashdot]
Good vibes from the Vision Cam
CheapAssGamer veteran kjauburn snagged one of those premature Vision Cameras at Toys R Us and posted his review. Despite having no interactive game to try out, he has a fairly positive run down of the features, including one (dual) shocking capability you may have overlooked:One interesting or disturbing item to note is you can vibrate the other individual's controller with the trigger buttons. Use your imagination...Owing my utter naivety, I'm throwing this one to our readership and the third party accessory manufacturers.
The cost of Immersion: DualShake a possibility
What is it about innovation that seems to bring out the worst in companies? When Sony began showing off its newest controller, cries from fans elsewhere claimed that they had copied Nintendo's motion-sensing technology. Back in the day, the PS2 had a similar situation that prompted litigation which Sony is still grappling with today. The idea was the rumbling technology, and Immersion said it was theirs.Enter the Sony-Immersion headache. The latter took it to court in an effort to settle their rights on certain patents which claimed the controller tech. Long story short: Sony's been paying out a royalty every quarter in a deal which circumvents a $90 million settlement they would otherwise have to pay to Immersion. With a pending appeal against the settlement, many are saying Sony has dropped the rumbling technology from their latest PS3 controller due to the bad vibe between the companies.But what should they do if along came a solution to the motion-sensing rumble conundrum? This is where TouchSense comes in. According to Immersion, they have the ability to make the PlayStation 3 controller shake, rattle and roll with force feedback, all the while retaining its sensing feature. However, there's still that icky $90 million thorn in their side. If Sony would cough up the cash, gamers could have their cake and eat it too. But they're saying it's too late and there's just not enough time to implement TouchSense. This, of course, contradicts Immersion's claim that it would only take a matter of weeks. Is force feedback worth the price? Would gamers even notice? These are questions that we're betting Sony is still trying to tackle.
