For many reading a book is not a very pleasant task unless the storyline is incredibly interesting. Today, concentrating on finishing an entire book can seem like a daunting task- many people would rather watch something on TV or view videos on Vine. However, with a new technology slowly raising its hood in the world of wearable technological wonders, book reading is about to become a much more interesting. Welcome the Sensory Fiction Project- a smart suit that you can wear. This suit when linked to a book can actually convey the emotions that characters in the story go through to the reader deeply involved in the book.
This smart Sensory Fiction is the brain child of academicians at the MIT. The technology essentially consists of several sensory modules that have the capacity to perform a number of operations including the application of heat to one’s body and the creation of vibrations that have the potential to stimulate heart beats in the reader. Indeed, this smart suit even contains compression pads whose function is to apply pressure on the reader’s body.
Together these three attributes of the Sensory Fiction i.e. application of heat, creation of vibrations and application of pressure help to recreate the typical physical reactions the human would body would exhibit when it experiences certain strong emotions like anxiety, despair, anger and love. Along with the smart Sensory Fiction suit, the book that is hooked to it also comprises of LED lights that light up in different colors to reflect the predominant emotion being conveyed in different pages of the book.
Currently, academicians at the reputed US institute have connected the Sensory Fiction smart suit to a book titled ‘The Girl Who Was Plugged In’. This book essentially belongs to the science fiction genre and the plot of the story revolves around a girl whose life gets by, by controlling another human being remotely. In other words, the girl in the book remotely controls another person using her brain- kudos to the researchers for having connected a book that is so relevant and relatable to the subject being investigated!
The linking of this science fiction story book to the Sensory Fiction smart wearable suit is at present going through various experimental stages. The prototype of this advanced book-reading technology has been designed by three experts, Alexis Hope, Felix Heibeck and Julie Legault. While the creation is amazing in itself, the creators of this incredible technology say that they are working on further exploring into the ways in which the technology can help people get more involved in an activity that as afore-mentioned many regard as either a boring task or one that requires intense and nearly impossible levels of concentration. But if the technology does make it through to the practical world, there are all chances of it turning people into bookworms!
