Think Mapquest or its successors is neat? NewScientist‘s Hal Hodson (11 April 2015) reports (paywall) on the next generation:
For a few days last summer, a handful of students walked through a park behind the University of Hannover in Germany. Each walked solo, but followed the same route as the others: made the same turns, walked the same distance. This was odd, because none of them knew where they were going.
Instead, their steps were steered from a phone 10 paces behind them, which sent signals via bluetooth to electrodes attached to their legs
. These stimulated the students’ muscles, guiding their steps without any conscious effort.
It sounds great until someone hacks into the system and takes you for the walk of a lifetime. I’m seeing a lovely sight-seeing tour of Venice, ending with an involuntary and fatal dive into the drink as your mortal enemy – or some kid with a root kit – takes over for just a moment.
Acceptance may be the biggest problem, although it is possible that the rise of wearable computing might help. Pfeiffer says the electrode’s current causes a tingling sensation that diminishes the more someone uses the system. Volunteers said they were comfortable with the system taking control of their leg muscles, but only if they felt they could take control back.
One of the students compared the feeling to cruise control in a car, where the driver can take control back when they want it. “Changes in direction happened subconsciously,” said another.
No doubt acceptance will be an issue with autonomic cars as well. And yet, it may turn out the next generation – meaning those who are just being born now – will not mind cars that drive themselves, and assisted walking that require no more direction than “take the tourist route” or “get me to the train station”.
Still, the inventors see this as useful for disasters:
The system could also be used to direct crowds, not just individuals. “Imagine visitors to a large sports stadium or theatre being guided to their place, or being evacuated from the stadium in the most efficient way in the case of an emergency,” the team write in a paper that will be presented at the CHI conference in Seoul, South Korea, next week.
