On-Body Circuits Create New Sense Organ

destinyland writes "In 'My New Sense Organ,' a science writer tests 'a new sense' — the ability to always know true north — by strapping a circuit board to her ankle. It's connected to an electronic compass and an ankle band with eight skin buzzers. The result? 'I had wrong assumptions I didn't know about ... I returned home to Washington DC to find that, far worse than my old haunt San Francisco, my mental map of DC swapped north for west. I started getting more lost than ever as the two spatial concepts of DC did battle in my head.' The device also detects 'the specific places where infrastructure interferes with the earth's magnetic fields.'

Much more practical...

[FooAtWFU]

A bracelet! Much more practical than the haptic compass belt [grinding.be], then.

True North???

[Cassini2]

the ability to always know true north ... electronic compass

I've been to Northern Canada. A compass points to MAGNETIC North. True North [wikipedia.org] is at the North pole, the point on which the earth spins. At true north, the sun never sets, and sometimes never rises for days on end. In summer, it has the longest days in the world. In winter, the longest nights. Magnetic north is not the same place at all ...

Magnetic North [wikipedia.org] has some interesting properties too. Amongst others, the Magnetic south and north poles move around, periodically flip, and do not pass through the center of the earth.

I recall the study with the compass belt

[sacremon]

It was posted here two and a half years ago [slashdot.org].

North Paw

[EricBoyd]

Some friends and I are the creator of the North Paw compass anklet. You can check out our website at sensebridge [sensebridge.net], or read all of our hack notes on the noisebridge wiki: compass vibro anket [noisebridge.net]. You can purchase North Paw kits from us for $95, and then you don't have to take Quinn's word for what it's like to wear one :-)

Re:Mental maps...

[oqaqiq]

I think we have cultural bias here. Just think about all the people that live in a great city in Japan, with almost all the streets that have absolutely no names, and people who live there manage to do everything without problem. In fact they don't even realize this could be different.

Re:Mental maps...

[clone53421]

Not that I'm surprised -- women will navigate first by landmarks and familiarity, and if that fails they fall back on maps. Men, on the other hand, rarely use anything but a map.

That's not quite true. Your explanation is generally accurate for how men and women give directions, and for if they're going somewhere they've never been (or have been a few times but don't know the way by memory yet). Women will give spatial directions (turn left at the QuikTrip, turn right at the second street past the big church on the right...) whereas men will generally use street names.

However, if you've already been somewhere a few times, it doesn't matter whether you're male or female: If you've been there enough times to remember the route, you're probably going off landmarks. I know I would be, and I'm definitely male...

Re:Shouldn't it be magnetic North?

[elgreengeeto]

If the wearer was passively registering the information from the anklet, then it would truly be only 45 degree resolution. However, when wearing it, it quickly becomes habit to twist the ankle back and forth slightly, to feel the exact point at which active motors change. This way the resolution approaches something close to the actual sensing capabilities of the compass IC (minus noise from the lag of the motors spinning up and down). It's the same unconscious action by which you might tilt something at an angle to see it's surface better. To answer the magnetic vs. true north question, the fact of the matter is that it really doesn't matter WHAT it points at. We picked (magnetic) North because that's seems a good default standard in Western culture. The usefulness of the device is in having an ever-persistent point of reference. As long as that directional reference is *consistent*, it should be able to point any cardinal direction and still be integrated into ones cognitive sphere. (Disclaimer, I'm the co-developer and have a lot of experience wearing one.)

Re:Mental maps...

[belthize]

My understanding is that women navigate by discrete landmarks building up a continuous linking of landmarks.

Men navigate by way points and distances. They flag in their brain decision points and then track distance to next point.

My wife and I've compared notes while driving and that certainly seems to be the case.

The argument I've heard from an evolutionary view is women needed a very accurate mental image of nearby areas for gathernig. Men needed to be able to navigate to remote areas and return without really knowing a great deal about the intervening details.

Re:What qualifies for new sensory organ?

[RubberChainsaw]

I heard about the magnets in fingers, too. You can hear it in the NPR archives. [npr.org]

Re:North Paw

[VShael]

I was going to buy one, but luckily you also included a page on "items you will need".
I'm afraid I'm not one of those geeks who owns a soldering iron, nor do I have any interest in buying one and learning how to use it.

I could be wrong, but you might sell more of them if no soldering was required by the buyer.