Spidey-sense suit tingles when someone gets too close

Ok, all you comic book freaks, here's something you can use to tell your mom that all might not necessarily have been in vain.

Article with prototype suit
Another article

Imagine how useful it would be for a cyclist in traffic to be warned when someone is getting too close. At the University of Chicago Victor Mateevitsi has come up with something that he hopes will help the blind with navigation and perhaps even warn people of a radiation danger.

There are some threats which are very deadly, but we can't sense them, like radiation. Electronic sensors can feel those threats.

It is expected that this work will be a step towards helping humans extrasensory perception. Holy clothing, Batman, he's come up with a suit called Spider Sense!

How does it work, you ask?

The suit has small robotic arms packaged in modules with microphones that send out and pick up ultrasonic reflections from objects. When the ultrasound detects someone moving closer to the microphone, the arms respond by exerting a growing pressure on the body. Seven of these modules are distributed across the suit to give the wearer as near to 360 degree ultrasound coverage as possible.

Of course all smart ideas have to be tested.

Mateevitsi tested the suit on students, getting them to stand outside on campus, blindfolded, and "feel" for approaching attackers. Each wearer had ninja cardboard throwing stars to use whenever they sensed someone approaching them. "Ninety five per cent of the time they were able to sense someone approaching and throw the star at them," says Mateevitsi.

After presenting his work in Stuttgart, Germany next month at the Augmented Human Conference, he plans to conduct further tests of his suit with the blind.

I just dropped him a line to congratulate him. I can so easily visualize this concept in preventing falls by the elderly and by children with mobility issues.

Also what about warning women of an approaching attacker?

Cool, now we just need to have Web Shooters

there is already bionic limbs that attach to the central nevus system it wont be long before people are punching holes in walls and scaling up buildings if we dont start ww3 and kill each other it will get to the point were as long as your brain functions properly every other body part or organ can be replaced and if they find a cure for dementure and such which effects very old peoples brains we could possibly live for ever.

Hey, this sounds really neat ...then I got to thinking about that very handy Ultrasonic cleaner I have and wondering. Isn't this only a difference in strength and focus, when it comes down to the brass tacks of it?

So... If this were to really take off as an idea, wouldn't this get a little ....uncomfortable...in a place like Disneyland in a massive que of closely spaced people in all directions?

I slipped a couple times and got my finger into the water of the cleaner while on. It's not an entirely unpleasant feeling, either .....until you recall what the feeling IS, exactly. I just wonder if too many in close spaces would have a nasty overlapping effect on biologic material, so to speak. Interesting concept otherwise though!

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


wrabbit, man i love your posts. But this time im not following lol. You mean people will feel this thing if they get to close and that would cause something in enclosed spaces like an elevator?

reply to post by Bixxi3

It uses ultrasound, right? Like so much else does for ranging or simple things. It works real well because it's not a common energy everywhere. Thankfully so. Ultrasound waves do great things in very low and focused power....and absolutely destroy biologic material in concentration. As wonderful as it is to clean things, the funny feeling one gets if their finger slips into an ultrasonic bath is literally the destruction of bone and material, however slight or brief. The books on using them are far more detailed and official in describing it. To use another example. it's why you can't clean everything in one. Pearls, for instance, are pulverized and turned to powder. Biologic material, after all.

It may be something quite different here, I don't know. However, again, if the thing takes off as a product, what happens with 200 or 300 people in a very tight space, all ultrasound transmitters a half dozen or more times over? Multiplication just struck me as an issue.

Congratulations!

This topic and thread has been chosen to possibly be discussed by the ATS LIVE crew this Saturday night between 6-9pm pst (9-12 est), as part of this weeks exciting "Turbo Topics" segment. We appreciate your time, research and effort in the posting of this topic/subject.



We are running 256kbps through the ATS Player but we now run a 32kbps stream for those of you with slower connections and there are also options to listen via other players on our relay site at Illustrial Website. You can also connect to the low bandwidth stream by clicking here to listen to the ATSLive Radio Show on ShoutCast


For more information and past shows, be sure to check out the ATSLive Show Threads Here.

Hope you'll listen in to the show!

I couldn't help smirking...isn't that just the way of the human?
Don't appreciate what you have, ignore it and try to create a duplicate of it that will be more separate.
I guess it is like presbyopia, where your vision sucks up close and you need to move things away to see them.

We have a skin that gives us all this information already. Many people have just learned to ignore and not use it.
I am sure that even if people started wearing this artificially made skin, with time, they would become insensitive to it too.

Thinking a bit more about it, I guess the benefit can be that one can take the suit off when they do not want to be picking up on this information.But I still think that if used enough, peoples brains would begin to de-sensitive to it in order to isolate the individual sense of being.

reply to post by Bluesma


Well I can't picture myself wearing a whole suit, but I could appreciate something smaller, such as something built into a sleeve, especially for women who have to walk alone in the dark after work, or to their car etc. Many are already instictively on high alert, but if something produced pressure on the arm for instance, then at least they would have a choice of which direction/action to take next, don't you think?

reply to post by JohnnyAnonymous


A humble thanks, Johnny.

( Woo-hoo! Yay!)

Originally posted by aboutface
reply to post by Bluesma

 

Well I can't picture myself wearing a whole suit, but I could appreciate something smaller, such as something built into a sleeve, especially for women who have to walk alone in the dark after work, or to their car etc. Many are already instictively on high alert, but if something produced pressure on the arm for instance, then at least they would have a choice of which direction/action to take next, don't you think?

Yeah, but see, we already have that- it's called "skin", and covers our whole body.