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gamers have always looked for ways to be more immersed in their games vibration

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inducing body suits omnidirectional treadmills headphones with pinpoint

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location accurate sounds these gadgets promise to take us deeper into the

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worlds we love but there has never been

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something quite like the vortex 4d environmental simulator

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wow i mean look at this it's actually blowing air at him like in

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the game so how is it riley are you immersed

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my eyes are kind of dry

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okay yeah let's talk about that

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so this curious device comes to us courtesy of a company called whirlwind

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fx and it's called the vortex it's supposed to increase game or video

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immersion by blowing air at your face which

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may not be quite as stupid as it sounds

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so to differentiate their product from just

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a usb powered desk fan the airstream

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actually changes in intensity and even

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in temperature depending on the audio and video playing on your pc with the

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basic idea being that if you see like a

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snowy scene you'll feel blustery gusts of wind and if there's a fiery explosion

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you'll feel a hot blast so uh riley

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how'd that work well so there's an intake fan at the back air is deflected

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with a plate to either pass through a heating element inside or to avoid it

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before exiting through this beautiful front nozzle now the vortex has a

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desktop app that uses what whirlwind effect calls the ex algorithm to monitor

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and analyze the audio waveform which informs the intensity of the wind blast

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the video meanwhile informs how hot or cold the air will be

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the orange and red in fire and explosions translate to heat while

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bluish colors translate to cold i mean

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that's really cool but you didn't actually tell me does it work um i mean

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sort of you uh you should probably try for

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yourself to be honest okay yeah get in here all right i'm

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ready to get immersed oh yeah get em well okay so this is just kinda smells

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like electronicsy or rubbery yeah i thought that would go away

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or it smells like really it smells like one of those cheap heaters you know so

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this is not a great first impression

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all right i'm gonna i'm opening up my mind okay i'm closing these earphones

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and opening up my mind so so this is their demo video this is the demo video

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and it works like as soon as you make something full screen then the ex

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algorithm will start like okay now it's analyzing okay so this is best case

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scenario this is best case scenario according to the makers of the vortex

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i've got to give credit where credit is due yeah it does feel more like i am

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outside right right and so watch this part watch this part

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that slows down when it slows down in slow motion and it gets going again

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oh oh wipeout sort of there is definitely

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a legitimate difference in in feeling yeah

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this should be

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blasting past your head yeah hugely like

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a kind of uh and it's just kind of a gentle breeze i mean

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a gentle breeze is better than nothing that's true

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very true in much the same way that you know force feedback through a controller

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was considered revolutionary for gaming even though obviously you know

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a slap shot feels different from right in your hands

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it's like it's blowing only at one side of my face though

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yeah that's yeah part of the problem

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okay okay so clearly the solution is two

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of them i'm my eyes are drying out though

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and i've only been here for like three minutes yeah how does batman fight

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superman that's stupid okay batman has and he's dead now he's human

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yeah again it's not really picking up on the correct intensity because it just

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kind of relies on the movement of the screen itself

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and it's just kind of going yeah you're outside there's probably a breeze

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do we here can i can i try an actual game yeah okay so i'm getting air blown

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at me getting some warm air blown at me yeah

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lots of warmness yep i'm running along there's some air

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blowing at me okay i'm standing next to fire standing in the face standing

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don't kill yourself getting a little hotter do you feel like you're actually

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fighting demons on a hell-infested mars the smell is kind of

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distracting i mean it kind of smells like burning

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i don't feel like there's a strong connection

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between the air bursts right the action

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on the screen and that can almost make it feel like you you're reminded that

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you're not in the game world you're sitting at a desk

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pretending to be the doom guy you're not actually the doom guy you

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know what do you know what's in my mouth i am the doom guy okay hey that's fine man

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you live your life so is this the part where you make fun of my rocket league skills no

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ah there was some wind

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wow see that's kind of interesting when when the the explosion when you get to a

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goal it's like it blew a thing at me watch this watch it a little bit

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yeah love the vortex embrace the vortex

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now it's time to really enter the matrix

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immerse yourself that that matrix reference is so

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so now and edgy well what are you ready player ready player one i was just gonna

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ah i've actually never played this game before um yeah throw it yeah um grab

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that that grab that

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you gotta go slower man go slower why would i go slower cause time moves as

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fast as you do so i could just

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there you go

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i can't believe i've never played this game i know it's awesome

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the doodad is not contributing in any meaningful way whatsoever

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maybe part of it is that i'm standing further than you were yeah it's not it

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might be but also you said you felt it it's not super or hot and this is this

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is consistent with what so in response to my own question does

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the vortex increase immersion

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well it does something does something um the first

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time you watch a video or play a game there's you're gonna have a

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whoa cool moment or like maybe a whoa

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warm breeze moment um and it's at its

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best when there's a sudden change in scenery that's accompanied by a blast of

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air and there are more than one

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moments when it actually works pretty well but the issue is that we found that

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while actually gaming like not just watching the vortex demo reel 2018

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whirlwinds detection engine just isn't smart enough to tell the

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difference between stepping out of a cave into the icy air

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and flipping on a light switch so it mostly

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translates into bursts of air being sent at your head every time you

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move your view from side to side which

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makes a little bit of sense there's like a little bit of wind on my face when i move my hair the issue is that for every

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time the wind syncs up with what's happening on screen there are three to

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17 instances where it doesn't like an event will occur where you would expect

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to have a corresponding blast of warm or cold air and it's not there and then

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other times you'll feel air on your face when you shouldn't like when you're

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driving a car flying an aircraft also i should hope

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that you don't feel air on your face when you're in a starfighter because

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then something is definitely wrong because you're in space

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yeah so yeah for the most part it just feels like gaming with a fan on like an

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oscillating fan that's blowing at you from one side which can actually cause a

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bit of cognitive dissonance

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when the explosion is happening over on the other side since the vortex

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is supposed to make gaming more immersive i guess one thing we haven't

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addressed yet is motion sickness so the feeling of motion sickness is apparently

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caused by a mismatch between what a player is experiencing in game and in

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real life so edzel one of our editors here gets motion sickness from using vr

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normally so we had him playing a racing game with the vortex and his verdict

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it might be a little better and then for comparison's sake we had him play the

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game again with a regular fan blowing at him and he said that that was just as

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good bummer looks like they probably could have saved themselves some r d

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now for the sake of science since the vortex apparently uses colors to inform

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the wind temperature to a certain degree we wondered whether we could game the

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system by displaying full screen solid colors so what we did what is just

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bring up a full screen

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you know light blue solid color but switching between light blue and orange

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didn't consistently change the temperature instead like before

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we simply got a burst of air whenever the screen changed

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so air temperature does change between hot and cold when an actual scene is

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displayed so there does seem to be some aspect of the algorithm that informs

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that change other than just color so maybe that's whirlwind fx's

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actual end game to use the vortex as a

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development tool to continue to refine their sensing technology something that

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does have potential like um i've done this bird simulator thing in vr where

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the changing fan blowing in front of you really affects the way that you perceive

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your rate of movement through the air but it should be noted that that's with

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a custom built experience like there's a whole rig that you strap yourself into

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with a game that's specifically built for it and it's unlikely that we're

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gonna see that kind of integration with mainstream games any time soon so should

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you get this for me i'm gonna say no

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not unless you've got 120 bucks burning a hole in your pocket and you just

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desperately need some kind of air ejection device to put it out

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riley do you have any closing thoughts no sorry i can't talk i'm too immersed

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right now i'm very immersed so thanks for watching guys if you disliked this

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video you can hit that button but if you liked it hit like get subscribed and

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maybe consider checking out where to buy the stuff we featured at the link in the video description not that we're like

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recommending it in this case also down there is a link to our merch store which

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has cool shirts like

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this one and our community forum which you should totally join there's a bug in riley's

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computer like a big one gotta fix this bug asap

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hi hey