A sci-fi styled movie jacket that gives you the sensation of being in the film you're watching, is almost here. You won't even need a magical ticket, ala 'Last Action Hero'.
According to Ieee Spectrum Online, the Philips-designed movie jacket works by using a series of haptic sensors and small vibration motors, that aim to trigger tiny sensors located around the body's skin.
The movie jacket looks like a cross between a thermal body jacket and an ultra tight X-Men costume. The jacket's 64 independently controlled actuators are distributed throughout the torso and arms.
According to the report, the jacket is very energy efficient, with enough juice to power all 20 motors for 1.5 hours on ordinary AA batteries. Philips researcher Paul Lemmens says the jacket is designed to work with DVD's or a pre-designed program that will tell the jacket to calculate haptic feedback on the fly during film sequences.
Does this mean we will actually get the chance to be kicked in the guts by Neo in the Matrix or whacked in the shoulder by the swinging punch of Christian Bale's Dark Knight? Not just yet, says Philips. Although the movie jacket can't actually replicate body blows, it does aim to simulate the experience of being in the action by cranking up the tension and anxiety levels in our bodies. Lemmens predicts that a viewer could feel shivers up their spine or "tension in the limbs".
The Jacket will be unveiled at a world haptics conference in Salt Lake City on March 20th.