I will probably not be a huge contribution to the community, so I am grateful for the opportunity to share my thought here and perhaps make a small difference in the future of VR.
At Disney World, one of the most exhilirating and breathtaking experiences was their California Adventure ride, which in essence is a huge hang gliding simulator in front of an IMAX screen. One of the small details of the ride that had a huge impact was the use of air flow and fans to really simulate flying through the air.
It hit me today as I was sitting here at work. Although it sounds ridiculous at first thought, a fan peripheral that adjusts output based on how quickly you are moving has limitless potential and application. I think if the experience it created justified how ridiculous it sounds at face value, maybe it would be worth it. Imagine feeling the wind on your face as you take off in a flight simulator, or drive around in a Humvee on Battlefield 4. Or the blast of air from diving out of a plane or jumping to your death.
I just at least wanted to put it out there and see what the community thought of it. Maybe somebody with more technical know-how and a little free time wouldn't mind seeing if it was at all worth it.
I have some experience with making custom USB devices kind of like what you have mentioned. It actually isn't that difficult for someone who is a beginner to custom electronics. The way I got into this was through a work project where I was trying to control LEDs via USB.
I have played around a lot with different types of devices but my favorite to get people started is http://www.blinkstick.com/ You have to build the device yourself(It has nine parts total) but it basically sets up a great interface/api for playing around with. It's got a ton of documentation for taking it apart and adding cool things. It would just be a matter of replacing the LED with the control for a fan. Then, whoever wanted could plug into the API they provide to spin the fan as appropriate.
Another option would be using an Arduino analog output to drive the fan voltage and then use a fan that is rated for 5V or use a buck converter to boost the output so 5V = 20V, 1V = 10V so that by varying the output voltage you can control the fan speed.
totally room for heaps of cool implementations of the technology like this. most like this though, probably won't really be available to the user in their own room. you might have to go to a theme-park or something similar.
unless you were really into hang-gliding. then you could definitely setup your own hang-gliding sim with all the trimmings. for sure.
Those dyson bladeless fans just suck in air with a motor and shove it out the ring, shouldn't be too hard to hook a motor up to a tube and set up an intake/output to mimic the effect?
