ExoSense

One of the projects I’m working on currently is to develop a new set of senses for people.  The field’s loosely called “exosenses”, and right now we’re flying the idea of developing new senses using tactile feedback and a smartphone, immersing the mass of digital and networked information available through feedback.  With time this feedback becomes integrated, the stimulus becoming a new independent sense as real as any other.

For now this is taking the form of an Android phone talking over 3G with Google Maps and interfacing to the body with a set of actuated solenoids on a belt.  Drop a waypoint or tag a reference, and Android constantly gives you feedback on the heading of the marker.  All without ever looking at a map or thinking, just feeling through your new sense.

The Arduino, compass, and demux for actuating the belt