Infinity and Beyond

TDS–no it’s not a new compact car from Volkswagen. Instead, it’s the Tongue Drive System, a new user interface device created by Georgia Tech researchers to allow users to control various systems with their tongues.

Use of the tongue would allow for much broader and quicker interactions with systems–the current “sip and puff” setup which you’re likely to have seen apparently limits users to only four commands at a time. The Georgia Tech solution uses a magnet placed under the tongue to give you forward, back, left, right, single- and double-click abilities–essentially all the interactions a standard two-button mouse would give you. Sensors outside the cheeks determine the magnets placement and motion.

The researchers also talked about expanding the number of commands that could be given. I assume that the tongue is agile enough to mimic the kind of gestures that you do for instance with a pen on a table computer or PDA. I also wonder about using something like a cheek piercing to make the sensors a more permanent part of the wearer’s face, but right now I think they have to be wired up.

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Google threw up this article on my Gmail news ticker–Frogger, anyone?  Old-school gamers revel in nostalgia.  I thought it was a pretty sweet idea to turn a garage or spare room into an old-school style arcade.  I remembered a site I came across when I was trying to get into physical computing which sold a ton of sweet arcade buttons and joysticks for creating your own stand-up arcade boxes.  The site even has templates and layouts for your reference.

This makes me want to get back into physical computing projects.  The board I’ve used in the past is the Arduino board, which is pretty cheap and has an easy USB connection (no painful USB-serial converters necessary).  A good reference book that I’ve got is Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers, by Tom Igoe and Dan O’Sullivan.  It’s a little outdated, but the basic concepts are all covered, and there are a lot of code examples which can easily be adapted to the Arduino.  They cover basic tools needed, soldering, all the various kinds of components you’re likely to use, explain how to read diagrams, and much more.

But, physical computing projects aside, this brings up the point that I tend to agree with the assessment that most gaming companies these days seemed driven to provide only the best visual gaming experience, while they often seem to ignore the actual gameplay itself.  Which is perhaps why the Wii does so well–the games don’t look the absolute best, but many are geared to have a quick learning curve and are focused on fun.  Wii Tennis for instance is arguably an awful looking game when compared to the graphics of nearly any Xbox 360 game.  But that doesn’t matter, because the gameplay is super easy to learn and you can start having fun immediately.  This has always been one of Nintendo’s strong points.

Thinking about this makes me want to build a stand-up arcade and put on some of the classic Nintendo and Atari games.  Maybe some Super Mario Bros, Frogger, Pac Man, Lolo…perhaps even some Super NES games like F-Zero…or better yet, a 4-player arcade version of the original Mario Kart.

Now all I need is a crappy TV, the Nintendo from the closet in my mom’s house, and a spot to put it.

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