Why is Your Pocket Vibrating? Did Liverpool Just Score?

By: Daryl | November 3rd, 2008

Swedish researchers must be an odd bunch. For some reason they’re currently working on new technology that will allow you to follow a football match via vibrations sent to your mobile phone.

How does this work? Good question. Apparently information like which player has the ball, the location of the ball and – crucially – when someone scores will all have a unique vibration. So the plan is that you leave your phone in your pocket and follow the game by interpreting the different buzzy feelings in your leg.

It’s being developed by Shafiq ur Réhman, Li Liu, and Haibo Li at Umeå University in Sweden.

“Vibration could offer a ‘private’ channel and very efficient information encoding,” says Réhman. “Even lower than SMS.”

I can see someone using this if maybe you’re at work and have to “watch” the game secretly. But it would require the user to learn a whole new language. And if there’s a game you really want to watch, then sitting around with a vibrating pocket isn’t really the same as attending the game, watching on TV or even listening on the radio.

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Category: World Football

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CSD

The Latin American version goes BZZZZZZZZZZZZ BZ BZ BZ BZ BZ
Laurie

I dunno. If the game gets too interesting, I'm seeing issues similar to the Harry Potter Broomstick.

The conservatives will never allow it.
Daryl

It probably makes more sense for cricket. Simple buzzes for runs (small for singles, medium for four and big for a six) and maybe a special buzz for a wicket.

But football's more complex in terms of the information that needs to be communicated, so I just don't see how it's going to work.
roswitha

Wow. Just imagine trying to do this for cricket.
Angharad

How do people get funding for this? I'm in the wrong place for research -- here in the States, we're having trouble getting our grant for our HIV research renewed. I obviously need to switch fields and move to Sweden.