Device for general purpose augmentation - "ACUMA"? (GPT-3 invented the name)

Ok let me give an example. You’d put on the suit, and using some sort of ar interface with the motion tracking on the suit, you’d select (by using a hololens like interface) a device to control (let’s say, a car). You could then have customizable ways to control it (like some people would want a ar steering wheel, but maybe someone else would want to tilt their hand inthe direction the car would go. Just an example but it could be made to be customizable. The thing is though, you wouldn’t have to be in the car to access it. You’d just need to be able to connect to it (probably with Internet). So you could control it from anywhere as if you were there, or from inside it. And it doesn’t just have to be things like cars, but rather anything.

Acuma Matata ? … sorry I’ll see myself out … :no_mouth:

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It’s kinda hard to explain tbh but I think it’d be pretty useful. Sorry about the typos I’m messaging on a $60 phone most of the time or else a $100 one. Lots of lag. So typing can be difficult sometimes

But anyway what I’m trying to say is the general idea is it lets you view the world from the perspective of what youre controlling with it (say, a drone) and control it with whatever gestures or interface you like best.

But physically you can be anywhere while doing it (even inside what your controlling, if it’s something a human could fit in).

And it could interact with your senses (sight, sound, possibly smell bc I think there are gadgets that release scents in a way designed to make it possible to emit a lot of different ones by combining chemicals, touch, maybe temperature, that kind of thing. And that’d allow you to actually experience whatever your controlling’s environment is like. Also you could add sensors to the suit and have them interact with your senses (like touch, by, say, letting you feel electromagnetic fields).

Cart before the horse, to the extreme

Your talking about leveraging advanced level BCI tools…

we can’t even crawl yet in regards to brain interface, and you want to run a ninja warrior course

Another very serious question you need to ask yourself, and be prepared to defend against

Why is this a solution?

You’re proposing a probably million dollar kind of thing, to fly a drone… that you could do with a controller or a laptop for 200$

Just because you think it’s “better” or “cooler” doesn’t make it “worth it”

Not a bci, I’m saying using normal sensors for body tracking. Tbh the problem is even the bci type things available now are very expensive so I’m saying normal body tracking. Possibly bci in the future, but definitely not now.

But… why?

What does body tracking offer over a controller or a laptop and joystick?

I’d posit, based on vr experience… most people are more precise and have better control, with existing controls versus full body tracking

Someone smarter and more versed in the field of biology or human input devices, can probably talk about nerve density in various parts of the bodies… varying levels of proprioception

So ignoring any technical hurdles to actually designing the device the way you want it. What are three specific use cases that you could employ this suit as you imagine it right now, if it just existed. Driving a car or a drone with a VR suit could be done, but what car actually exists that you would be able to remotely drive it? I guess you could heavily modify a tesla to basically be an RC car for this full body joystick. What other systems could you interface with that wouldn’t be like a whole multi-year 30,000USD development project in it’s own right?

I think the rapid fire and not cohesive nature of your posts are really throwing people off. I appreciate the excitement, but bouncing around like this becomes fatiguing for anyone trying to talk things out with you. We want to be helpful and hear what you have to say, but maybe make it more digestible with like short bullet points and such.

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Ok, so for a first version, this is the basic idea

  • Full body tracking, in a suit, possibly with touch feedback allowing you to “feel” things
  • A vr headset, with stereoscopic cameras, allowing it to act like an AR headset
  • Some sort of computer allowing the system to actually work

The device can

  • Control other devices
  • Have sensors, etc. Added by connection to computer and mounting it on the suit
  • Run programs in AR windows, etc.
  • Have functions added by using some sort of modular system making adding features easy (examples being, say, a tail or maybe an electromagnetic sensor for the hands to sense electromagnetic fields)

Don’t get me wrong, I think by now we all know what the basic idea is and what the device should be able to do - but still, the question remains: Why?

I like VR (kinda…), I like gaming, I’m curious about BCI, all fine. But why should I put myself into an insanely expensive suit (not to mention again that the stuff you’re trying to implement is closer to Sci-Fi than to reality…) just to drive a car around? And get my senses bombarded with what’s around that car? Hell nah, I don’t want to smell the highway. Or space, to be honest.

What about safety? The car could be controlled by basically anyone, so what if an accident happens? Who is responsible? How can you prevent being hacked and people using it to “interact with your senses”? Sounds fun…

You’re basically going full sci-fi with your idea, and completely ignore all the nice dystopian things sci-fi already showed us :wink:

I actually like what can be achieved with VR and gadgets combined, like the simulator that lets you feel like an eagle flying around, by combining VR simulation, a moving “chair” you’re lying on, movable “wings” so you can steer by moving your arms, and a big fan in front of your face. I guess this must be quite an amazing experience. But this is something you do just for fun, you can actually book that experience (I guess), and it’s something you do once or twice or so because it’s amazing. But not something you would buy for home use, because… why?
There are cheaper ways like VR treadmills that basically use some sort of body tracking… you can’t log into a spaceship with that, but still.

Plus, another thing to keep in mind, VR already has tons of problems with motion sickness (and I have problems with VR because of that^^). When I imagine flying a drone in first person view, without really moving at all, I instantly get sick. And no, just making some gestures instead of using a controller will not solve that problem.

About the bad idea of moving your muscles with such a suit, I think Eyeux already perfectly described why this just won’t work like you think it would.

Well in really referring to examples here. Also price doesn’t need to be that much. Apparently there’s designs for DIY data gloves that cost 60$ a pair. And for the VR headset - well, you have phone VR and older PC VR headsets on ebay (PC VR would probably be best, obviously). And 2 cameras shouldn’t be that expensive. As for a computer - There’s a lot of options. But the idea is it can be added to over time to add features, so it isn’t necessarily that expensive. I’d say a good first model, like the most basic, is going to need data gloves, br headset, and the cameras. Some sort of 3d printed frame would help (to add hardware to, allowing it to be upgraded and also making it not just an AR rig with data gloves, also making it a sort of suit. The idea I had was match the bone structure and literally mount externally, obviously, but over where your bones are, so it had the same flexibility you normally have and it doesn’t feel cumbersome or anything to wear it).

Cool, what do you need to make it? Make a list. Not like “data gloves that I read are cheap to diy” and "VR headset (they’re cheap on eBay). Start to put together a real Bill of Materials (BOM) with individual parts that make up each component with model numbers, and the best price you could find an example of online

…especially for the whole “haptic feedback / can interact with your senses”-stuff… and for the things you need to connect to “basically everything you can think of”.

Here the gloves:

Well that’s neat.

35583218

Those rotary encoders are pretty bulky though, and the fingertips are covered and string is loose to catch on stuff. Are you planning for your suit to be used during day to day activities, or will it be just be donned in your master command center?

Well i figured it could be improved by adding a sort of shielding to it. If you smack the back of your hand against a wall or something by accident - get ready to spend money on components. But if a 3d printed case of a sort could be added, that’d help. Also touchscreen gloves. But that, as well as ignoring the idea it has to still look like a normal human hand with a glove, would help, since otherwise the gloves would be too bulky, especially with the casing. Also stretching it out can help. Notice all the tech is on the glove. In a suit, it can be on your arm. As far as VR goes, I’d say all you need is something with a good field of view and resolution, and same for cameras. Also I’d recommend a headset with OLED displays, not LCD. Another idea I had is I’m not sure if any of you have heard of these yet, but there are Chinese companies making the smartwatches that are basically a small (for a phone) but thick android phones with sensors like (I believe) heart rate. They have a screen that’s usually in landscape when you wear it. If you look up “large screen smartwatch” on Amazon you’ll see them. Trust m you’ll know it when you see it bc it’s ridiculously large. But I was thinking that those or something similar could work as well for a control system to, say, interact directly with whatever computer is controlling this (like a vnc or remote desktop or something like that, or possibly just a custom app). Not 100% necessary but a possibility I thought of.

So at least for the computer interface part of this project (putting aside the physical augmentation for now) it seems that you can overcome a lot of these complications like size and durability and cost by just using a camera with image recognition and gesture controls. Then you can wear whatever you want, one size fits all. Hell, you could even put it on a drone that follows you around so you’re not locked in one location

Well what’d be cooler- normal person with fancy VR, or something more cyborg-y? :slight_smile: