[Simucal]

This reminds me of feelSpace[1]. It is a belt which has vibrating motors all around it and a compass. I believe the point is to give you an extra "sense" which after you have worn it enough you incorporate with your other senses.

[1] - http://feelspace.cogsci.uni-osnabrueck.de/

[doctoboggan]

I built exactly that device, but as an ankle bracelet. I also used GPS so you could have it continuously point you to a specific location. It was for a college project and I never took it past prototype so you had to carry around a breadboard and an Arduino.

It was interesting to wear and after some time it started to feel like a "sixth sense".

[corin_]

That in turn reminds me of magnet implants which are an interesting (and a little odd) concept. http://www.iamdann.com/2012/03/21/my-magnet-implant-body-mod...

[lytfyre]

Two guys I know through the local hackspace have had this done.

One is a cable/internet tech, and claims that it may have saved his life - you can't perceive voltage potential, but you can "sense" current flow.

He was standing in a puddle of water, and was reaching towards the inside of a cable box on a house, and "felt" current flowing through it. Investigated, and found that the line into the box had been rubbing against a household electrical wire, and had worn through the insulation on both, causing a short that was carrying power through the box.

[cavilling_elite]

Doesn't work well in my 9.4 T MRI environment :)

[Crito]

That's for sure. I wonder how safe these sort of implants are even when just playing around with other rare earth magnets. Having the implant ripped out because you absentmindedly picked up another magnet would really suck.

[Qantourisc]

I wonder if the same result can't be obtained by a magnetic ring ...

[corin_]

I know literally nothing about this, but would posit the hope that if multiple people have cared enough to implant an object under their skin, at least one of them would have considered a less-permanent solution like a ring before hand and tried it out.

[philh]

There's an ankle version of that that you can buy as a kit: http://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw/

(It does look kind of bulky though.)