Always knowing where is north

This little unit makes you able to know where is north all the time:

There is something (especially in male humans) called senso dell'orientamento (in Italian), which does exactly that. Knowing where is north.

However, it's quite easy to follow the directions, if you enter a square building. But there are situations (more than you can imagine!) where your 'direction-sense' will betray you.

Normally you don't even need that sense, so you'll just ignore the failure, or wouldn't even notice it.

But if you drive a few miles on a serpentine road on a shady day, or you enter the underground, and travel a few stations, you'll be surprised.. With this machine you could be more aware of the direction.

However, a few years back I've already read about a similar experiment, and the result was the same: the experimenter was surprised. (So this team just reinvented the compass.)

I'm sure that these kind of augmented reality (or augmented perception) devices wont be mainstream soon, but there are some fields, where it could be useful.

(For instance: navy, rescue teams, pilots, hikers, and maybe geographers.)

http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/enhanced/my-new-sense-organ