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To get really immersed in a computer game, you need to feel every turn, crash
and explosion. Most of us can’t afford a full-scale hydraulic simulator like
those in arcades, so James Bobrow at the University of California at Irvine
adapted an office chair. He replaced each leg of the chair with thick tubes that
can be extended or contracted by forcing air in or out. When linked to a
computer game, the chair could respond to action taking place on screen. “You
could have dogfights over the Internet,” says Bobrow. The chair costs less than
$1000, compared with tens of thousands of dollars for a full-sized…