Sunday, September 01, 2013
Haptography: A digital future with feeling
www.humansinvent.com: As we saw in the previous article about haptics and virtual reality, the sense of touch is starting to be incorporated into digital technology.
Though the field of haptics is fairly nascent, recent scientific research hints towards a future where this non-verbal form of communication could be utilised just as powerfully as sight and sound.
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4 comments:
This seems absolutely amazing! It would be great to see it used more in the arts. I know as a kid I always loved interactive exhibits. Making this into an interactive theatre experience would give us a new sensation in theatre we havent had before. There are always moving and vibrating seats, or even mist and fans at places like Disney, but being able to fine tune this would make it even more powerful. We always due stuff to make the audience feel a certain way, but if they actually could feel how the actor did would make that connection even stronger!
I love that technology has advanced so much that someone can sit at home and feel something that isn't there, but the concept frightens me. Does that mean that, instead of going to a museum and seeing art, they should just go home and look at a screen? Or should someone never go out and buy their clothing, just sit on their computer and designed based on uploaded texture? It bothers me that we are coming so close to never having to step outside and experience the real world. Sure, this could be incredibly handy. Using this to teach training dentists and doctors what to look for is quite efficient and I imagine it to be effective. And if this was available in a museum, it would be a great addition to an exhibit. But this should still not be confused with the actual sensory that is feeling. You are not feeling something directly, you are feeling what a stylus has felt for you. That is a bit disturbing. This is a great technological advancement, but it worries me that people will view it as a stand-in for their own judgement.
This seems amazing, but also very scary. What worries me the most is the repetition of the intent to use this technology to train doctors- surely holding a vibrating pen can never be exactly like touching a real person, no matter how good the technology may be. Flight simulators are great for training pilots, but they dont graduate a student straight from using a flight simulator to flying a commercial jet filled with people. This could be a great studying tool for medical students, but we should be careful that it never replaces real, physical, training entirely.
This new technology is outstanding, a device that allows you to be able to feel and learn the texture of something without having to physically touch the item. This type of new technology is going to help us move forward leaps and bounds and advance as a whole. This will advance medicine and help with the aid of patients.
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