Haptic Technology - The Future of Touch

Intro to The Technology

Haptic Technology will revolutionize touch screens forever. Why? Because it will finally give images a physical texture. Wood, stone, plastic, metal, crevasses, cracks, ridges, grass, water, wool, cotton, paper...

If there's an image of an object on a screen, whatever its real life texture, you will be able to feel it. Read on to find out more:

Haptics

Imagine a google image of a piece of a wood on a standard touch screen. Now this is just an image, right? A 2D object formed from thousands of pixels. But what if, by using the touch-screen, you could feel the wood shown, every grain, every hole, every ridge. What if it felt hard rubbing against your finger tips and you could feel the friction against it. And then, seconds later, you could have another material shown on the screen, perhaps wool or a brush for example, which would feel much different, much softer.

This is one thing Haptic Technology aims to achieve - a revolution in touch technology. 

Haptics derives from the greek words for 'sense of touch'. The idea is that some sort of physical response is generated by the device, whether its through vibrations, electric current or mechanical movement of the screen to create a feeling of different textures or layers. Some companies look to create haptic touch screens that could replace computer keyboards. Computer keyboards are commonly preferred to touch keyboards on IPads for example because of the satisfying click and texture of the keys against fingertips when pressed. One attempt to counter the lack of this on touch screens has been providing vibrations whenever a button is pressed. For many, this is not good enough and just makes it even more difficult to type accurately in some cases.


Haptics could enable all letters on the touch keyboard to feel like real keys, with clearly defined, feel-able edges without need for large vibrations.

However, physical responses are not limited to touch through finger tips on a touch screen. They could involve vibrations for any part of the body. For example, you could have a small electronic pad that slots into your shoes beneath the soles of your feet that applies pressure to various parts of the underside of your foot. If you are controlling a virtual character, moving across uneven ground in a video game, you could feel the rock and gravel the avatar runs across, press into your feet in real life, creating an even more immersive experience. Scary stuff, eh?

One company actually looks at a system whereby people can exchange hugs on a social network or online game, and feel it in real life. Imagine playing the Sims 5, whereby your main character is hugged or hit by a computer character and you can actually feel it as you play.

Near Future Uses

- Touch screen to feel buttons

- Laptop and phone touch keyboards to improve typing accuracy

- Video Game Consoles (Potentially being included into the new Wii 2 controller though more will be discovered about this on June 7th)

-e-paper - reassuring page turning for the user and the paper will actually feel like normal paper.

- for visually impaired people e.g. using braille on touch screens which can actually be felt by the user. 

Far Future Uses

- An interesting one is the integration of Haptics into Holographics - Being able to feel a 3D holographic image as though it actually exists.

- Computer Modelling

- Virtual Reality

- Online Shopping - You are able to feel the texture of furniture before you buy it - different sofa textures for example. 

- Medical science - Doctors being able to feel the patient's body temperature and skin through robots from thousands of miles away. Also, training nurses what it feels like to dissect, operate and inject without needing to be next to a body at all. 

- Training in other areas too - Soldiers training by being able to feel the full impact of a grenade without actually being hurt, diffusing bombs and so on...

How it works?

Touching a sofa and clothing or touching stones and bricks will provide very different feedback to the brain. The receptors in the skin, proprioceptors, gather the information about the object being touched and carry the information to the Cerebral Cortex in the Brain where info is processed. 

The skin is covered in complex patterns of receptors, some detecting pressure, others vibrations, temperature, edges, softness, pain...They work together to form an detailed picture in the brain of whatever is being touched. This feedback is known as FORCE FEEDBACK.

Using sensors, actuators and other electronics, haptic technology aims to recreate this Force feedback digitally. Methods include providing small vibrations, pulses, and the latest - a small electric current creating a safe electric field. Apple are planning on using hot and cold air upward blasts in their keyboards to create force feedback before the user ever touches the keys so they can make their keyboard even thinner. (More info on this coming soon). There are also hints from patents and reports that Apple may too be working on integrating true haptic technology into their touch screen devices.

The possibilities are seemingly endless so no doubt the integration of this technology and research into it will continue for decades. The revolution has already begun in the form of vibrations but I predict it will improve at an incredible rate after about 2013, especially if the rumours about the Wii 2 are true.

Read More: 

If you want to know more: 

Immersion is a leading researcher and developer in this industry. Their site tells you a lot of information about haptics and its uses: 

http://www.immersion.com/index.html