TO TRY a new gaming style, grab some plastic and put a chip on your shoulder.
Zi Ye and Hammad Khalid of the at Queen鈥檚 University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, have devised a way of using a shoulder-mounted projector system to display 鈥� and play 鈥� a game on a bendy A4-sized sliver of plastic. Sensors in the screen allow gameplay to be controlled by bending, shaking or tapping it.
A prototype of the system, called Cobra, was shown last week at the meeting in Atlanta, Georgia. It runs games on a computer housed in a shoulder pouch, while the pouch鈥檚 straps hold a small projector that shines images onto the flexible screen, held by the gamer.
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The back of the screen is criss-crossed with flex-sensing wires, and other sensors note when the screen is tapped or shaken 鈥� actions which could be used to, say, swing a virtual sword or reload your trusty bazooka. These signals are sent wirelessly to the computer by a small circuit behind the screen.
Three infrared LEDS mounted on the display are tracked by a camera housed with the projector, enabling the rotation of the screen to be used in, say, driving games. 鈥淭he projection follows the display automatically. A very wide range of game actions can be supported,鈥� says Ye.
The upshot, the pair say, is that Cobra provides the gaming power of a laptop while giving the gamer the freedom of a hand-held.
鈥淐obra provides the gaming power of a laptop while giving the gamer the freedom of a hand-held鈥�
There is a growing interest in using projectors to enhance displays, says of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, UK. They allow programmers 鈥渢o radically augment the desktop with natural, intuitive user interfaces鈥�.
