This may help with my terrible sense of direction

http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/enhanced/my-new-sense-organ

From the link:

"My new sensory organ is a small anklet strap with a LiPo battery and circuit board attached to an electronic compass on the anklet’s side. Inside the strap are eight small buzzers, up against my skin. As I sit here typing, the buzzer on the very left side of my left ankle is gently informing me which way is north."

What am I missing? It sounds like an interesting toy but what is wrong about a simple compass with no batteries or buzzers?

$95. smackers worth of toy

Little Rickie said:

What am I missing? It sounds like an interesting toy but what is wrong about a simple compass with no batteries or buzzers?

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Nothing at all. It just sounds like an interesting gadget, but not really practical. Plus, something buzzing on my ankle would probably just annoy the hell out of me.

I use GPS or good old fashioned compass when I'm off trail. I tend to get lost when I'm NOT in the woods

it has been shown that most wearers gain a new sense of absolute direction, giving them a superhuman ability to navigate their surroundings

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http://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw

I see a late night infomercial coming out of this.

Next step borg implants. Resistance is futile.

Martha Stewart loved hers when she wore one a couple years ago.

"It's a good thing!"

Looks like an attempt to mass-produce the research I read about a year or two ago, which had a lot more information on "why." This isn't a compass replacement. From a research perspective, it was a test to determine how humans can develop new "senses." The brain is flexible and can, for example, restore vision after damage to the vision processing centers. The test subject in that original article said it really did turn into just another sense...he "knew" where north was, and the orientation of his surrounds, just like "knowing" where his hand was without looking. Very cool. More practically, he found his sense of place and direction was dramatically improved even after taking the apparatus off; it helped "train" a sense of direction.

I find this sort of augmented reality/cyborg stuff very fascinating, and it has all sorts of potential to be useful. Even if it doesn't replace a real compass.

I imagine it would be good for a taxi driver in a big city but then again it might cut into his income.