Rage seems to  be all the rage today. With the game Rage by id software being released and with people rage quitting over the new Battlefield 3 Beta due to it's unplayability but what do you do with all that rage. Where does it go? I could make a domestic abuse joke here, but that'd be really weird, unfunny, stupid and unnerving, so I'll just say this: Never take anger out on yourself or others. It's never worth it, especially when someone has developed a piece of technology to take it out on.

With that irregular segue, Ian Campbell is the inventor of a lovely little invention called the RageGage. With the RageGage, you connect the awesome device to your computer and slam down on it rather than ruining your mouse, keyboard or any pets in the room and it then records via pressure about how hard you hit it. But not only that, but you can play games with it...maybe I'm not explaining it well enough. Good thing I contacted Mr. Campbell during the week to get his words on the matter rather than have me jibber-jabber on like a Mr. T fan with rabies.

QJ: Where did the inspiration for the RageGage come from? And how long have you been working on it?

IC: I designed RageGage while attending grad school at Georgia Tech. I was a dual degree MBA and Masters Aerospace Engineering student, so I was under a lot of stress (and knew a bunch of stress out people). The first “RageGage”, called “Anger Manager”, was just a joke to blow off steam with my friends. I didn’t think much of it after graduating, but after working as a management consultant for a few stressful years, I began to wonder about the market for a high-tech stress relief gadget among my co-workers, clients, and friends.

Campbell's invention isn't no science project. He's been working on it with some real engineering behind it and from the images, it looks like a cool design team. I should probably say up front that we're not getting paid by RageGage, they're a small indie company and I don't think I'm that good of a video game journalist (if I can call myself that other than on my Twitter) to be getting anything free, ever. RageGage is just a guy working really hard and trying to get his invention out there and I was so amazed by the idea and how cool and niche it was, I just had to contact Ian. He continues about when he was developing the RageGage the different ways it could have gone.

IC: I also started thinking about other applications of the pressure sensitive technology – buttons, touchscreens, interfaces for toys, game controllers, and much more. The idea began to grow as I brainstormed applications with my wife (who also holds an MBA and MS in Industrial Engineering). In May of 2010, I left my management consulting job to found NextInput, a company seeking to change the way people interact with electronic devices. RageGage was naturally the first choice as a product to commercialize, and we launched the product at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas seven months later.

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