Technabob » sensory

Q-Sensor Bracelet Determines Your Mood and Tweets About It

Hazel Chua — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 14:00:44 +0000

Everything’s all about your mood and social networking these days. Remember the heat-sensitive iPhone backing that turns your smartphone into a sort-of giant mood ~~ring~~ phone? Or that creepy Jell-O ad campaign with the giant face billboard that smiled or frowned based on the moods of people in Twitterverse?

Now take everything a notch further with your very own personal mood detector and tweeter with the Q-Sensor Bracelet.

So what makes the Q-Sensor by Affectiva any different from all those other self-proclaimed mood-detecting products? Well, for one, it makes use of sensors that measure your galvanic skin response, an indicator of your physiological or psychological arousal (and also what supposed “lie detectors” measure.). It also keeps tabs on the electrical conductance of your skin, which changes with varying moisture levels on your skin (sweaty, much?)

Aside from that, the Q-Sensor also measures your temperature and overall movement, and inputs all this information into pre-installed software to determine your mood. And if you want it to, it will Tweet your mood.

Sounds pretty cool, right? The only downside is the $2,000 pricetag that comes with it. Of course, Affectiva doesn’t intend this as a consumer gadget – it’s actually targeted at medical and research environments, where the cost shouldn’t be such a factor.

[via GigaOm via Geeky Gadgets]

Disney Tactile Brush Seat to Add Realism to Games and Movies

Shane McGlaun — Sat, 28 May 2011 13:00:09 +0000

I like a lot of realism in my games – and movies to a point. I would love to have a chair that allows me to feel the forces exerted on the body during a real car race for instance. I would not want to have the feeling of some ghoul touching me in a scary movie though. I used to routinely scare myself back when the last version of Doom came out just from things jumping out, if it jumped out on screen and touched me I would probably die.

Disney is working on a system that will be able to be integrated into your computer chair for gaming and seats at the movie theater. Created by Ali Israr and Ivan Poupyrev at Disney Research Pittsburgh, the system is called the “Tactile Brush” and it has a series of 12 vibrating motors inside. The motors are able to trick the body into thinking it feels certain things like a touch or G-forces.

The team says that the system will even be able to make the person feel like water or rain is running down their back. Talk about bringing some realism to games, let me feel the Gs in a racing game along with a force-feedback system and motion control and I will be a happy camper.

[via New Scientist via Gizmodo]

Relaxation Station Will Find a Way to Make You Chill Out

Technabob — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:49:15 +0000

Sure, we’ve all seen devices that promise to help you relax, whether with light, sound, or even aromatherapy. This new gadget out of Korea takes the kitchen sink approach to chilling out, combining all of the aforementioned techniques to get you to unwind.

The LTK-2000 Therapy Station starts out with 24 relaxing sounds in categories ranging from “concentration” to “therapy for depression” to get your mind off the din of your everyday life. Once your ears are soothed, a ring of bright blue LEDs pops out of the device to provide your eyes with a up to 5,000 lux of light therapy.

Once your eyes and ears are relaxed, your nose won’t feel left out, thanks to an array of herbal aroma cartridges which can pop into the top of the unit. If that’s not enough, the system also has a built in anion generator, which is supposed to help purify the air you’re breathing.

If this thing can’t help you to relax, you’re probably beyond hope. Now all you’ve got to do is figure out how to get one imported from Korea, and you’re all set. If you’re up for the challenge, you can find them for sale at Enfren for 378,000 KRW (that’s about $395 USD). There’s also a video of the device in action over on AVING.