Imagine wearing your HoloLens, then reaching out to touch a hologram and actually feeling it. Mind blown, right?! Now imagine that same hologram responding to your touch. I don't mean in the way holograms currently respond to an air tap, but a much more refined and precise touch. Maybe you touch a character on the shoulder and it turns around to see you, or maybe you hit a button in the air and it reacts accordingly.
Immersion, a research and development company based in France, are experimenting with bringing this into the realm of possibility by combining the HoloLens and sound-based technology from Ultrahaptics. As you can see in this very short video below, it is already being tested.
Haptics is any form of interaction using touch. The idea of using one's skin as a radar system with a haptic feedback suit, which applies forces and vibrations to the user, was an idea that really excited me when I read Daemon by Daniel Suarez.
The idea of using Ultrahaptic's sound technology, which uses ultrasound to project sensations onto a hand, as both haptic communication and haptic feedback has a good deal of potential in many settings. Combining that with the use of the HoloLens opens up all sorts of doors to new potential workflows, forms of entertainment, and general interaction.
From invisible buttons and dials that you feel when you need them, through to tangible interfaces that track your hand, this elegant and simple technology was created using complex mathematics yet is based on human nature.
Would touching a loved one's hand from the other side of the world seem awesome or would it creep you out? Does haptic feedback excite you as a potential form of interaction? Let us know in the comments below.
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