Body Suit Gives You Real-Life 'Spidey Sense' | Hacker News Reader

Body Suit Gives You Real-Life 'Spidey Sense'

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He his colleagues also want to test SpiderSense on visually impaired people and add more sensors for future trials.

This sounds like it would be a major breakthrough for the visually impaired community. Can anyone here speak on this subject? I'm curious to know if it's truly as amazing as I think it is.

Better pictures, use cases (e.g. slippers for the elderly) and paper here: http://www.evl.uic.edu/files/pdf/SpiderSenseCameraReady.pdf

This is one of those inventions that immediately inspires lust. I want one. Even better, with electroactive polymers or similar can easily see it being incorporated into an unobtrusive undergarment... Or an ostentatious super-suit, for that matter.

I can definitely see some military/security-related applications for this suit; for better or worse... Anyway this is an exciting invention ! But the downside of the suit is that it does not filter surroundings based on a aggression/negative intent. Now I don't know how we could easily detect that an individual wants us harm : maybe faster heart rate, he/she is the only one following us and is either walking/running fast to catch up or tails us at a defined pace. Actually is an individual's walking pattern unique? If yes that could also distinguish everyone around you. Anyway that is the most exciting article I have read today. Time to get some work done now:D

In related news for the visually impaired: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/health/fda-approves-techno... Putting the two together would be incredible.

This would solve a real problem in New York City... pedestrians so wrapped up in their smartphones that they walk right into traffic signs, other people and even into moving traffic!

Did they plug the ears/control for hearing of the test subjects too?

By hearing alone I can sense almost any human or sufficiently strong electrical presence, especially indoors.

It seems as though this would only work if you were not moving. Is there a way to determine the relative position of people even if you were moving?

Is there a difference between you approaching someone, and someone approaching you?

I don't know if OP meant this but you approaching someone means that you are walking or otherwise moving your own body, which creates special challenges.

Things like your own arms waving around your body as you move would need to be accounted for and not detected as foreign objects.

> Things like your own arms waving around your body as you move would need to be accounted for and not detected as foreign objects.

I don't think you need to account for it; your brain will quickly correlate your movements with suit's reaction and filter them out on subconscious level. Brains are very good at that (and that's the reason this suit works well in the first place).

yes, exactly, that why the people who tested it, weren't confused by own arms, and were able to achieve a accuracy of 95%. That's amazing!

If it worked effectively there would be a military use as well.

yeah, its totally going to be a great boon for visually impaired community, specially when these sensors can be made a bit smaller, and one problem is worked out, that is, in a crowd, it may go crazy, so this a lot of field tests away. 7 sensors only, is a great achievement. Also, they would have to work out how to make them waterproof, increase the range to avoid potholes on the road, and vibration setting adjustment.

Sounds like everything Googles automatic cars are working on. I bet a lot of that technology can be used for a system like this.

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