Philips Force Feedback Jacket Being Tested
A new force feedback jacket is now being tested by Philips Electronics, and it aims to help users feel their multimedia content in an entirely new way.
In today's gaming consoles, vibration technology in controllers has become commonplace without any extra investment. Through force feedback technology, video gamers can feel the force of an explosion, the jolt of a collision, and even the jolts of flight turbulence. Even some of the more popular PC joystick and gamepad peripherals offered force feedback, and a variety of game related seats and sofas began hitting shelves with subwoofers built right in to stimulate with sound.
Unlike most force feedback technology on the market today however, the jacket developed by Philips Electronic is built around a series of physical actuators to affect the user, instead of sound or motion based vibration. Sixty-four independently controlled actuators are distributed throughout the jacket, from the torso down to the arms. The sixty-four actuators are paired in arrays of four and linked via a serial bus, with each array sharing its own microprocessor. Surprisingly, the power needs of the jacket are small. Just two AA batteries can power the jacket for one full hour, even if twenty of the actuators were triggered continuously.
Even more impressive is the actual rate in which the actuators can be triggered. Each actuator is capable of being cycled on and off at a rate of 100 times per second. While the bulk of the actuators are centered around the torso, the arms still receive sufficient stimulation with its eight actuators per sleeve. By using four actuators in the front and four in the back of each sleeve, the sensation of an arm being touched or tapped in several different spots is achieved through a phenomenon called the "cutaneous rabbit illusion."
The technology behind the jacket was revealed by Philips at the IEEE-sponsored 2009 World Haptics Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. According to Philips senior scientist Paul Lemmens, “People don’t realize how sensitive we are to touch, although it is the first sense that fetuses develop in the womb."
As an example of the technology put to use, Jensen later continues "We want people to feel Bruce Lee’s anxiety about whether he will get out alive, causing a shiver to go up the viewer’s spine and creating the feeling of tension in the limbs." Even sensations such as a pulsing on the chest would be created by the jacket to imitate an elevated heartbeat. The aim according to Lemmens is to investigate emotional immersion in multimedia most of all. Whether signals are pre-encoded within a DVD, or are sent real-time via an application, the feedback desired can be achieved in several different ways.
According to Jensen, there are no plans currently to develop a set of pants to accompany the jacket, however the potential applications for the technology are limitless.
Certainly interesting in concept, we definitely look forward to seeing this technology in action in not just movie based applications, but also in games.

Who want to put on a jacket everytime they play a game or watch a movie, not to mention if you want to watch with multiple people, or what the temperature is like. And what about the sizing of this Jacket?
There are to many variables, and it's seems like a huge gimmick.
As long as it wasn't "Michael Jacksonish" like mtyermom suggested, a couple folks might buy into it.
Can anyone remember the kid and the old man who had on the vr goggles and dies while playing a skiing game?
http://www.foxcarolina.com/news/14250846/detail.html
Same goes for baseball, golf and any other sports....
Because it is both funny and frightening at the same time.
Though with proper VR it would be possible to not only feel what is going on but to have the body actually respond to it. Things from adrenaline rushes to even a bloody nose is possible. Dreams can already cause these actions for some people. I mostly have violent dreams (due to my PTSD) and I often throw punches in my sleep, wake up with a bloody nose when in the dream I was hit there. (and no I did not hit myself)
I'm sure we all have had dreams that have felt so real. All we would have to do is make a VR that gives equal quality. It would produce the same effect.
Honestly, from some of the feedback it appears that a few people suffer from a serious lack of risk assessment ability along with the typical US view that all activities should be reduced to "zero risk".
What is the probability you will die playing baseball? Skiing? Driving in a car? Living a sedentary life (playing video games instead of playing baseball or skiing, all while eating doritos and chugging down artificial carbonated beverages)? How many people have physical injuries from their dreams that are potentially lethal? (Personally in my nightmares I've been shot, stabbed, had my throat ripped, and atomized by a nuclear blast and I am still alive.)
Take a bit of advice from your friendly Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
Don't Panic
Yes, you are going to die someday. The up side? You'll finally have achieved a zero risk! However, heart disease, diabetes, or cancer will most likely get you before you die from a video-game induced epileptic seizure (anyone remember that scare?) or heart attack. Also, when checking risk, remember to check how many times something DOES NOT happen versus does. So a kid got hit in the chest and it stopped his heart - how many times do kids get hit in the chest with baseballs and their heart keeps beating? How many times has someone eaten peas (or whatever other food) and NOT choked to death? Sure, there is a risk - but everything you do when alive has some risk.
Exactly, the only real use for it.
lmao, really now. They are tiny air balloons that inflate and deflate according to the game, they won't even cause a bruise at "max power". To stop a heart takes quite a shock, or jolt. The heart isn't that Fragile my friend, for if it were, we'd all be wearing metal vests to protect from bumps
As for the vest, I WANT IT NOW!... imagine a freaky game in the middle of the night, and some beast hits you from behind and u feel it, my christ that would scare me.. i'd scream and wake up the kids.. thats for sure.