Comment Re:Just me? (Score 1) 105
Guilty as charged.
Jacket Lets You Feel the Movies 111
sp3cialk79 writes "Researchers from Philips Electronics plan to describe a jacket they have lined with vibration motors to study the effects of touch on a movie viewer's emotional response to what the characters are experiencing.
'People don't realize how sensitive we are to touch, although it is the first sense that fetuses develop in the womb,' says Paul Lemmens, a Philips senior scientist who will be presenting research done using the jacket at the IEEE-sponsored 2009 World Haptics Conference in Salt Lake City.
The jacket contains 64 independently controlled actuators distributed across the arms and torso. The actuators are arrayed in 16 groups of four and linked along a serial bus; each group shares a microprocessor. The actuators draw so little current that the jacket could operate for an hour on its two AA batteries even if the system was continuously driving 20 of the motors simultaneously."
Comment Re:Availability (Score 1) 1085
I agree wholeheartedly. I personally hate optical media, and see no reason why CD drives exist (for those with broadband), save installing the occasional OS. If a game that I want appears on Steam or XBLA, I'll pay for it in a second. No CDs in drives to worry about, and I can just sit back and do other things while it downloads, which to me is the perfect solution. If I notice a game that I want, and god forbid I have to go out of my way to drive and get it, chances are I'll take the other route. The reason I'm so inclined towards downloadable content is because I'm lazy and impatient. Ideally, here is my process for buying a game:
1. Hear about it through some news aggregate, forum, colleague, etc.
2. Go read a pre/review online, see what the general consensus about it is.
3. If I like the idea, grab the demo.
4. I'm sold, let me go download it and play.
Personally this is why I prefer Live to Steam. For the trial, you download the whole game - once you've finished the demo, it simply asks you to pay and unlock the full thing, and you can just continue playing as if you bought it from the start. Simple, painless, and most importantly, quick.
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