Itching for haptic feedback

6 Jul 2009 - 11:42am

Last reply: 3 years ago

4 replies

786 reads

Jerome Ryckborst

2007

I'm just itching for haptic feedback. I read about mobile-phone screens that
have the capacity to simulate a clicking feel, so a flat screen pushes back
to mimic what your finger would feel if there were a mechanical button to
press.

I'd like that, but on a much larger scale. I want something the size of a
desk that lets me drag objects between the flat and the upright part of my
workstation, and lets me feel the edges of things as I push them across my
desktop with my fingers. I tried to fake it in this movie:
- http://fivesketches.com/2009/07/the-future-is-haptic-right/

Does anyone out there who works on the hardware side of interaction design
want to give me an Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) for my dream? Is this 10
years off, or 20?

Comments

6 Jul 2009 - 12:12pm

Brooke Baldwin

2008

i think the media lab @ mit has continued to work on some stuff along
these lines with several projects.

http://www.media.mit.edu/research/groups-projects

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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=43401

6 Jul 2009 - 2:14pm

Lynn Marentette

2007

Jerome,

I don't have an ETA for your dream, but I have the same sort of
dream - actually, I had a real dream and blogged about it. I have a
few links on the following blog post that might point you in the
right direction:
"Last night I dreamt about haptic touch-screen overlays..."

http://interactivemultimediatechnology.blogspot.com/2009/04/last-night-i-dreamt-about-haptic-touch.html

It is nice to know that I'm not the only one whose imagining these
things.

Lynn

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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=43401

6 Jul 2009 - 2:51pm

Barbara Ballard

2005

On Mon, Jul 6, 2009 at 11:42 AM, Jerome Ryckborst<j3rom3 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Does anyone out there who works on the hardware side of interaction design
> want to give me an Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA) for my dream? Is this 10
> years off, or 20?

We don't have great hardware visibility except when we get to work on
a relevant funded project, so it's spotty. But check out Immersion for
medical, games, and mobile (in market already) and Senseg for
arbitrary screens including mobile. With NO actual connection, my
business hunch says that Senseg is 36 months out. And I got burned by
predicting e-Ink as being commercial a few years before it actually
did.