The Xbox 360 “game” Rumble Massage is basically just a way to control the rumbling of your controller. So who better to have review it than someone very familiar with vibrating plastic objects?
Microsoft Research is set to present a paper this week outlining an entirely new set of notification tools for mobile phones, including communicative tapping and rubbing mechanisms, complementing the blunt, simple, and often not-so-silent ‘vibrate’ function with a set of truly quiet ‘rub’ and ‘tap’ notifiers. They argue that user notification is a communications bottleneck for current cell phones, and that rubbing or tapping motions could notify users as well as communicate common messages, to which there could be assigned simple patterns of movement.
The problem with my iPhone is that I can barely hear the ringtone when I receive a call. Maybe I’m going deaf, but I have vibrate set at all times as a backup just in case. It helps me catch any crucial calls when the ringtone may be drowned out by ambient noise—plus I like the way it feels in my pants. But what about you? Do you use your mobile phone vibrate function?
If you have a terrible sense of direction but are too proud to be seen getting directions from a GPS device, this GPS jewelry is for you. It consists of a couple of rings, one for each hand, and they vibrate to tell you where to go. Need to turn left? Your left-hand ring will vibrate. Need to turn right? You know where I’m going with this.
There’s also a control panel that hangs around your neck or clips to your belt that lets you put in your destination and such. So what do you think, would you rather have this than be seen staring at a map on a screen? Is wearing big purple rings really that much cooler? Me, I’ll stick to getting lost, thank you very much. [Shiny Shiny] More »
