Sure, you may have your fancy
vibrating controllers and
liquid-injecting touch screens, but Takayuki Iwamoto wants you to play with the air. Iwamoto and some of his buddies at the University of Tokyo have come up with a way to use focused ultrasound to create manipulable virtual objects in space. Using multiple transducers, the "Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display" creates an acoustic radiation pressure field. Holding your hand in the field allows you to "feel" the object, manipulate it, and feel response. Right now, the system only creates a vertical field, but you had better bet that Iwamoto is working on that. As for suitable applications, interest has already been shown from both industrial and gaming developers. No word on the
hentai industry taking note, but that can't be too far away. Check the video after the break to see this tech in action.
[Via
BBC News]
posted Sep 3rd 2008 9:08AM
For porn?
Those crazy japanners.
Ok now, don't think of boobs, don't think of boobs. It's just a big round tea pot with a knob on the top... God damnit!
Nice tech though, wonder how strong these fields might get in the future. Maybe this is the first "force field" that actually works.
Grreeeaaat....Finding the virtual g-spot will be even harder than the real thing...
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, Start maybe?
holy crap thats amazing. how much resistance can it generate?
Anyone else thinking of cars with no wheels?
Nope, not me.
You mean like hovercraft?
Great Scott Marty!
You have to understand, most of the guys on here are just thinking dirty guy thoughts. Heres to you to rising above that. But, I don't think it would be practical, mag lev is much more resilient, known, & powerful enough to lift cars & trains & such, this seems like just some tactile feed back, don't think it would push hard enough to lift anything of measure.
Make that "WOULDN'T be practical", need some caffine
Considering that it takes an emitter the size of a mousepad to shift a piece of paper, it seems unlikely. To make a hovercar, it would need to output enough force to lift both itself and a useful load, which is a long way from what's being shown here.
Also, whilst I'm no sonic engineer, I tend to think having thousands of cars emitting ultrasound in a city can't be good for the structural integrity of buildings.
i've thought about the same thing before. the problem with it is making them stop.
Iron Man?
ultrasound eh, also keeps the musquitos away and the cat from sleeping on the keyboard I presume, drives the dogs mad though right?
Just realised it is linked from the BBC, so it's probably all nonsense and reported wrong, they don't have a good track record of getting technology, oh well
Am I the only one that's thinking tactile holodeck?
Also, the invisible object is totally the Utah Teapot! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_Teapot
Damn it, beat me to it lol.
Step 1: Install those ultrasound emitters all over the floor of an empty room.
Step 2: Mount 3D projectors pointing at each wall in the ceiling.
Step 3: Put on some of those butt-ugly polarisation 3D glasses.
Step 4: Realize you forgot to hook those projector up to a source
Step 5: Realize that holodeck software don't even exist yet.
Step 6: Be sad, very sad.
Fascinating.. It'll be very interesting to see this combined with holograms..
Wow, we're in the future ;)
How long will it take to combine this with holograms and create a real Holodeck?
I can finally realize my dream of getting freaky with a ghost!
this is awesome! from the looks of it you could make that piece of paper float in mid air :o
no... Its not making the paper float in the air, rather the paper is the visual medium allowing you to see what exactly is happening. The actual ultra sonic doohickey is not visible to the naked eye, so pushing a paper on it lets you know there's actually something there. Hmm.... I wonder if some sort of led or something in the base would enable you to see. I don't know enough about sound to collectively say yes or no to a lit item.
It's somewhat interesting, but extremely limited. Acoustic radiation pressure only exists perpendicular to the wave propagation, so any resistance will only be "up". Never, ever down. If you have a sphere of transducers you can do better, but this will be pretty limiting as well, and the amount of pressure/resistance you'd feel is going to be quite small. Don't get your hopes up.
Why not just drop a cloth on top of the thing instead of all that rubbing with the piece of paper? Even ghosts need white sheets to tell us where they are.
Exactly, or maybe some tassles that drape around it?
Personally, I'd like to watch them drop some dust or water onto the thing and see how it reacts. If it the dust particles / water droplets remain suspended upon the virtual contours being simulated without being shaken all to hell, I'd be pretty damned impressed.
So would Iwamoto.
Next Generation Punchout!
Poke things you say, (opening zipper, going toward the monitor slowly), ..... yea ...I thought that would happen,