MIT Whiz Wants to Turn Your Skin Into a Computer Interface

I can't find the article discussing it, but this reminds me of "Beyond sensory substitution--learning the sixth sense." [1] which is one of my favourite studies on neuroplasticity.

Basically, hook up a load of cell phone vibrators to a belt, add GPS, make the vibrator closest to north vibrate so that you have a constant haptic compass.

People wore them constantly and became better at navigational tasks: were better at finding their way around in new areas, were much more conscious of subtle curves in roads and could more reliably point in a direction and say "My house is over there". The haptic compass became a new sense for them.

Interestingly, once the compass was removed, people also reported a sense of being lost without it that subsided after a few days, because they had come to depend on it.

[1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16317228

I would find it intresting whether tacile interfaces of that kind would aggravate the problem we allready know as phantom ringing. You sure know the feeling that your phone has just rung in your pocket, but when you get it out, it didn't ring at all. Having these tacile buttons on your skin will proably just make the problem worse.

Haptic information has been utilized for military pilots for at least a decade now. I know early research was focused on the same types of information Ms. Jones is gathering.

I never read any of the research results, but the resultant information passed on to me was that there are key areas (e.g. each shoulder, lower spine, etc) that were easily interpreted and did not cognitively overload pilots.

In Thomas Pynchon's novel V, there is a lazy type who uses a switch on his skin to control the television. The resistance of his skin varies depending on whether he is asleep or awake, so he automatically starts the TV when he wakes and turns if off when he falls asleep.