High-tech Sony Patent
Eugene sent this in, and it looks interesting.
It’s a Sony patent for a device that with “changeable hardness”. You could roll up a screen, for example, and when you want to use it, pass a current through it and it’ll get inflexible.
I don’t know how Sony could use it for games, even given the example:
For example, if a game player is defeated in a fighting game, the electrorheological fluid device is controlled to become soft in order to improve the realistic sensations in the game.
Huh? My imagination is coming up short for me. The patent itself says “electrorheological fluid device and an electronic apparatus, which realize satisfactorily changeable hardness or tension in a portion of the device or apparatus which a human body touches, enabling application to a product that needs to have portability.”
Sounds cool, of course. But I still don’t know how it would be used for gaming.
GameSpot – High-tech Sony patent has gaming potential
Try now - 
June 13th, 2006 at 9:40 am
VERY OT!
Hehe… shot some GOOD photos some days ago!!
http://mitglied.lycos.de/biertrinkerflacht/DSC00116.JPG
http://mitglied.lycos.de/biertrinkerflacht/DSC00117.JPG
Not to bash MS… But this IS a 360 you know
I could even use the 360 Pad with it!!
June 13th, 2006 at 9:58 am
Only thing i can think of it being used for is in fighting games. For example, an accesory is made using the stuff in the form of a glove which the gamer wears. And when a fist comes into contact with the opponent, a certain part of the glove becomes solid to mimic a connection between fighters?
Strange idea though.
June 13th, 2006 at 3:04 pm
I dunno. Sounds expensive. I don’t want PS4 to cost more than PS3.