英国新闻听力 第三代太空背心（在线收听）

GARETH MITCHELL: I'm Gareth Mitchell and still to come the radio amateur gauging how Hi-Fi the Wi-Fi is on the "One Laptop Per Child". Now then, "Doctor, doctor help, my games consult might have vibrating control, it is amazing graphics but the experience still isn't quite realistic enough." Hmm, I'm doing my doctor's voice now by the way. "Hmm, yes many patients report these symptoms. I therefore prescribe a special vest that uses miniature pneumatic rams to simulate bullet hits, shrapnel and explosions." Oh yes wouldn't it be great if doctors really were that cool. Well luckily Doctor Mark Ombrellaro, an American vascular surgeon really is that cool because he's developed what he calls The 3rd Space Vest and he set up a company called TN Games to market it. And what it does is it brings haptics in gaming, in other words the sense of touch to the body as well as just to the hands and Mark's also developed a helmet that even expands that "being shot experience" to the head. Well earlier Mark popped in to give me a demo on a title called "Incursion".

I should describe what I'm wearing, which is a helmet and a vest and it looks a bit like one of those Kevlar bullet proof vests that you see war correspondents and troops wearing which is appropriate for the game that I'm playing at the moment. Because it's the first person superman game and not a lot is happening by describing that but suddenly all these opponents have found that I'm here, all these characters in the game. So yes I'm wearing the vest, I'm wearing the hat and within the hat and the vest is all kind of actuators that can simulate the feeling of gunshots, of shrapnel. And so as you, this is me, firing my gun here, at the moment not a lot is happening as far as far as the haptics, the sense of touch is concerned but now I start kicking off. Oh my goodness, somebody is shooting me from behind and I can simultaneously feel four bullets going into me from behind. It's the weirdest feeling, not amazingly pleasant but then this was never meant to be a pleasant experience but its just adding a whole extra level to the game play. I'm taking shots in the head, shots behind me and there's just been a massive explosion and I simultaneously felt what I think must be shrapnel going into my chest and going all the way up my back as well. I need a rest, right, so we're going to put the game on pause for a minute. Let's speak to Mark Ombrellaro who is the brains behind this torture.

We turned the sound down on the game but Mark amazingly the haptics is still carrying on. As I'm speaking to you I'm still feeling shocks and the shrapnel in my chest, so tell me a bit more about this vest.

MARK OMBRELLARO: You bet. So the vest was originally designed from medical application. If you will, for a telehealth, the ability to do a remote physical exam from a doctor in a remote location and what we ended up doing is taking that same technology and bringing that to a consumer application, namely the videogame environment. So what's happening, we use a pneumatic base system, so there are little air cells and as a surgeon I got them designed over key anatomic points like if you're really getting shot what would be critical points of interest. There are eight impact points if you will; four in the front and four in the back is how we have the vest designed. But with the software that's put into the game, you're not just limited to the actual impact of the bullet, we can do ground effect so like if your character jumps off a platform and lands you get that jolt to the back as you land and feel that effect. We can also do things like G force effects, if you're in a vehicle driving through a videogame environment so its more than just the impact of the shots if you will.

GARETH MITCHELL: And as well as doing the chest and the back, you're doing the head as well and you've made me wear this helmet that looks like a kind of high tech military helmet and you've got all of these hydraulics in here too then?

MARK OMBRELLARO: Correct. We have actually six additional impact zones if you will; front, back, side, side plus we have two little goodies, one over each ear and near misses, which you can hear the bullets and feel them fly by.

GARETH MITCHELL: You get the whole "rookie shay" effect?

MARK OMBRELLARO: Exactly.

GARETH MITCHELL: And I've, I've been shot in the head several times, mainly down to my very lame game play, it has to be said, and my goodness you certainly feel it. When you get shot in the forehead you know you're in trouble.

MARK OMBRELLARO: Yep. Well there's supposed to be a consequence to it so. You know one thing that's very interesting is that people are concerned about videogames and playing the shooter games and the violence associated with that, and how people get disassociated when they just live in a video environment alone. And one of the interesting things, as you've experienced is that as you play the game you're actually understanding the consequence to those actions and you are physically responding as you're playing the game. From a physician's perspective, it's quite interesting because it's actually putting a lot of the consequence back into the video game that nobody has that understanding about anymore, they're a little dissociated from it.

GARETH MITCHELL: So the principle here is pneumatic, that must mean there's a time lag and that's critical in many kinds of gaming isn't it? Can that potentially spoil the gaming experience?

MARK OMBRELLARO: There's actually no time lag. With the code embedded into the game, it's instantaneous in fact as your character is taking damage in the code, at the code level it's already triggering the jacket so in some cases you may notice it by feeling it faster than you will by the visual cues on the screen.

GARETH MITCHELL: So this is faster than the graphics card?

MARK OMBRELLARO: Sometimes yes it can be.

GARETH MITCHELL: OK, right, so enough chatting I think.

加雷思·米切尔：我是加雷思·米切尔，接下来是业余无线电爱好者评价关于具有高保真度的无线保真技术是如何应用于"每个孩子一台笔记本电脑"计划的。

现在首先听听："医生，救命啊，我的游戏顾问要有振动控制机了，它的制图不错，但是体验仍不够逼真。"恩，顺便学一下医生的声音。"嗯，很多病人都报告了这些症状。于是我设计了一个特殊的背心，它使用填充的微型气缸来模仿子弹，弹片和爆炸。"如果医生能够真的这样做就太酷了。幸运的是我们有动脉血管外科医生马克·奥伯尔博士，他真的很酷，因为他开发了"第三代太空背心"，并成立了"TN 游戏"公司出售它。他在游戏中引入了虚拟触觉技术，也就是身体能够感受到如手般的触摸，马克还开发了一个头盔，使头部也能够体验到被击中的感觉。不久前，马克突然给我了一个名为"入侵" 的游戏样本。

我要描述一下我的穿着，一个头盔和一个背心，就像你常见的战地记者和军队穿着的那些凯芙拉防弹背心，对我正在玩的这个游戏正合适。因为这是第一人称超人游戏，目前风平浪静，但仅仅一瞬之间，游戏中所有敌人角色已经发现了我。没错，我穿着防弹衣，藏在帽子里面，防弹衣可以模拟被枪击，被弹片击中的感觉。现在，你在那儿，我在这儿，朝你开枪，现在我什么都没有感觉到，直到有了虚拟触觉技术，我开始有了被击中的感觉。噢，天啊，有人在我背后射了一枪。同时我可以感到背后中了四枪。这种感觉真是太诡异了，很不舒服，中枪当然不会是一件好事，但它使我升了一级。我头部中了一枪，背后中了好几枪，遇到了一场大规模爆炸，同时我还感觉到弹片穿透了我的胸部。我需要休息，没错，我们要暂停一会儿。让我来访问下使我备受折磨的始作俑者马克·奥伯尔博士。

我们把游戏的声音调小，但是马克，令人吃惊的是，虚拟触觉还在延续。当我跟你讲话的时候我还能感觉各式各样的冲击，弹片仿佛还在我胸中，来为我们介绍下这个防弹背心吧。

马克·奥伯尔：你说的没错，这个背心最初是用于医疗上的。如果你愿意，可是使用它做远程医疗，使用它，医生可以为你做一个远距离体检，最后我们将同样的技术用于电子游戏环境中。看会出现什么结果，我们使用一个以气动为基础的系统，因此几乎没有气囊，作为一个外科医生，我清楚解剖的关键点并将他们用于这项设计中，比如，如果你真的被击中，哪些地方是利害相关的。有8个关键部位受影响，四个在前，四个在后，这是我们设计这个背心的基础，但是你在使用这个软件时，你不仅受到来自子弹的真实冲击，还可以感受到地面效应，比如你扮演的角色从一个平台跳下来，落地的时候如果没有站稳，你会感到背会摇晃。还有重力的感觉，如果你在电子游戏中开车，所以你能感觉到的远远不止中弹。

加雷思·米切尔：除了胸部和背部，你在头部上也引入了虚拟触觉技术，你给我戴的头盔类似一种高科技的军事头盔，你在这里也用了水力学的技术吗？

马克·奥伯尔：没错。我们有6个附加的效果区域，前边，后边，左右，左右附近，我们还在两耳旁边设计了两个小区域，你可以听到子弹在耳边飞过的声音。

加雷思·米切尔：你们有整套的"新手"体验？

马克·奥伯尔：完全正确。

加雷思·米切尔：我的头部被打中了几次，主要是因为我对游戏很不熟悉，天啊，你肯定感觉到了。当你前额中弹了，你就知道你有麻烦了。

马克·奥伯尔：是。理论上是这样。你知道人们关注电子游戏，杀人游戏以及其中的暴力，有趣的是，当他们独身在一个电子环境中时，他们是如何脱离那些暴力的。当你经历过游戏后，你玩的时候就会提前知道这些动作会带来什么后果，你也会知道如何应对。从一个医师的角度来看，非常有趣，因为它把各种结果都设计到了电子游戏中，没有人会完全知道有什么后果，他们稍微与之分离。

加雷思·米切尔：这样看来，原理上是气动的，也就意味着有一个时间间隔，这在很多游戏中都非常关键，不是吗？它有可能会破坏玩家在游戏中的体验吗？

马克·奥伯尔：实际上并没有时间间隔。在代码植入游戏的同时，实际上是瞬间的，你的角色就会接收到破坏的信息，在编码水平上，它已经启动了保护套，你甚至在屏幕上看到它之前就能感觉到它。

加雷思·米切尔：所以这比图片卡要快？

马克·奥伯尔：有时候是的。

加雷思·米切尔：好的，我想我们有了足够的了解了。