Navigating by Ear: Sort of

At SIGGRPH this week developers from the University of Electro-Communications in via SIGGRAPHTokyo demonstrated the Pull-Navi. It's a hat that looks sort of like a crude robotic bug with rectangular wings is perched on top. The gizmo is connected to a GPS which, with the aid of six little motors, tugs the wearer's ears (forward, backwards, left, right, up or down) to direct the wearer's navigation. According to the developers, people follow the Pull-Navi's gestured directions naturally; pull the left ear, and the user turns left, pull both ears forward or backwards at the same time, and users speed up or slow down, respectively.

As bizarre as it sounds, this idea does have some merit. Yes, the implementation right now is both crude and excessively dorky, but think of something smaller, and less obtrusive and obvious. It has enormous potential for people who are "directionally challenged," as well as those with poor or no vision, or who are traveling in an area where they do not speak the language. There are advantages to a silent signal, and for a navigational device that doesn't assume the user has the ability to read and follow a graphic map.