Quick, get your lol power leveling vibrating glove on!(Credit:Gridprop/Wikimedia Commons)I've been known to wander the wasteland aisles of the grocery store, seeking out a single elusive item in a futile voyage only slightly shorter than "The Odyssey." If only I had a prototype tactile glove developed by the Helsinki Institute for Information Technology and the Max Planck Institute for Informatics.The glove works by giving the wearer physical feedback. It vibrates to lead the person to a point in 3D space. The researchers see it being useful for locating items in a supermarket, finding acar in a parking lot, or zeroing in on a book among the stacks of a library. Related storiesOutperform steroids with this body-cooling gloveSmart glove gives voice to sign language gesturesWhole Foods' sci-fi shopping cart stalks you as you shopThe project uses four vibrotactile actuators mounted on a glove. A Microsoft League of Legends Power Leveling Kinect sensor is used to track the hand. Head researcher Ville Lehtinen of HIIT describes the experience as feeling almost instinctual. "This provides a very intuitive experience, like the hand being 'pulled' toward the target," Lehtinen said in a release about the project. I'm imagining a future where you have a glove like this. It's Black Friday. You have your glove set to lead you through the mayhem, straight over to the $59 42-inch LCD TV you've been coveting. The only problem would be if everybody else had the same glove. In that case, you might want a boxing glove. Fistfight in the electronics section!
Tactile glove is like a homing device for your hand