The folks over at Applied Sciences have designed a prototype for a pressureless Dance Dance Revolution controller. Instead of activating the directional arrows by pressing buttons, the player does so by interrupting lasers beamed across the device. A different pattern of interruptions corresponds with a specific button press. The prototype uses a USB interface and, as the creators point out, it could theoretically be used to play any game that uses directional keys.

Gizmodo lavished praise upon the gadget, but I'm not so sure. While the photo at right is compelling, you can't actually see the lasers while the thing is running (that's how lasers work, see, unless you want to douse your living room with chalk dust). The grid is just drawn in for effect. One of the most lasting aspects of DDR's design is its fantastic continuous feedback; you step and get immediate praise or blame. I can't imagine there would be enough feedback in this device to make it usable. And it's still as big as the pad anyway :/.

(via Kotaku)