An American surgeon working on a “tele-health” breakthrough
has devised a way for videogame warriors to feel shots, stabs, slams, and hits
dealt to their on-screen
characters.

A vest designed by
doctor Mark Ombrellaro uses air pressure and feedback from computer games to
deliver pneumatic thumps to the spots on players’ torsos where they would
have been struck were they actually on the
battlefields.

The “3rd
Space” vest will make its US debut in November. It will be launched with
the first-person shooter game “Call of Duty” and a custom-made
title.

“It was originally
designed as a medical device,” Ombrellaro said while letting gamers try
the vest at the E for All video game exposition in Los
Angeles.

“To give medical
exams via the Internet to prisoners, the elderly, those in rural communities and
other isolated people,” he
added.

The medical version of
the vest is more sophisticated, enabling doctors sitting at their computers to
prod, poke and press patients’ bodies from afar and get feedback on what
they are virtually feeling, according to
Ombrellaro.

That model is
pending approval by the US Food and Drug Administration, which wants to be
assured that diagnosis made using the vests are reliable. “You can
teleconference with patients but you are missing the hands-on,” the
vascular surgeon said. “Being able to do that is the last step to
tele-health.”

A 3rd Space
vest that mimics the feeling of G-forces and turning pressures for flight and
car games is to be launched early next year, after Ombrellaro’s company TN
Games finds exciting titles to match it
with.

TN Games is based in
technology giant Microsoft’s home town of Redmond, Washington.
“We’ve had some Microsoft people check it out,” Ombrellaro
said.

Via Times of India