The Business & Social Network
Getting "in touch" with Virtual Reality
Full immersion VR is of course one of the dreams most aspired to by any virtual world enthusiast. Sadly, we aren't quite there yet. Some may remember the VR helmet and tilt sensitive gaming rigs that popped up as attractions in shopping malls and similar locations during the nineties.
Console gaming controllers have come a long way themselves, instituting their own versions of multi-axis (let's just say "six", for the sake of argument) tilt recognition and shock delivering technology to enhance the immersion quality of games.
For those who don't keep up on this sort of thing, I present to you a recent development towards interactivity in the digital world.
Proposing to replace current PC game controllers, the Novint Falcon is a device that reportedly allows a level of tactile interaction previously unheard of in the gaming world.
Though I have no desire to use this thread as a plug for Novint or its devices, I must agree that tactile sensation is an important part of our sensory input. Anyone who has ever experienced the effects of a novacaine injection can understand how "unreal" the lack of feeling can seem. Vibrating controllers were one thing, but devices such as this suggest the ability to feel weight, textures and 3 dimensional movement resistance. Of course...it only does so much good without the software developers jumping on the bandwagon to incorporate such advances in technology.
How will such an advancement in immersion affect the metaverse at large? Will software developers be able to keep up and include this and similar hardware functionality in their games? Will people be willing to pay upwards of 150 US dollars for such a device?
These questions and more all beg to be answered, as the advances in feedback technology increase. Most importantly however is the next question...has anyone actually been lucky enough to try this bugger out yet? : )
Console gaming controllers have come a long way themselves, instituting their own versions of multi-axis (let's just say "six", for the sake of argument) tilt recognition and shock delivering technology to enhance the immersion quality of games.
For those who don't keep up on this sort of thing, I present to you a recent development towards interactivity in the digital world.
Proposing to replace current PC game controllers, the Novint Falcon is a device that reportedly allows a level of tactile interaction previously unheard of in the gaming world.
Though I have no desire to use this thread as a plug for Novint or its devices, I must agree that tactile sensation is an important part of our sensory input. Anyone who has ever experienced the effects of a novacaine injection can understand how "unreal" the lack of feeling can seem. Vibrating controllers were one thing, but devices such as this suggest the ability to feel weight, textures and 3 dimensional movement resistance. Of course...it only does so much good without the software developers jumping on the bandwagon to incorporate such advances in technology.
How will such an advancement in immersion affect the metaverse at large? Will software developers be able to keep up and include this and similar hardware functionality in their games? Will people be willing to pay upwards of 150 US dollars for such a device?
These questions and more all beg to be answered, as the advances in feedback technology increase. Most importantly however is the next question...has anyone actually been lucky enough to try this bugger out yet? : )
Tags: controllers, feedback, gaming, immersion, novint, pc, reality, sensation, tactile, touch
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Dave Elchoness on -
Very cool. How long before the average business person can shake hands with business colleagues sitting in their offices on the other side of the globe (and actually feel the handshake.) I think this points something else out. Interface and hardware are critically important to the development of VR. The keyboard is almost laughable as an "immersion" device. When/how will the keyboard be replaced tho?
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Permalink Reply by Nicholas Ernst on -
I wouldn't want to hazard any guesses about when the keyboard will see its final days. In some ways it is hard to imagine it ever going away. (I suppose that is a sign I am starting to feel my age, when I see the technology I use everyday being at the pinnacle of its development and can't imagine much better that doesn't seem to fall into the real of science fiction.)
At this point, I suppose we have the beginnings of all the tools needed to make some truly interesting interfaces. If one were to combine this unit, voice recognition (and speech to text translation when needed), the headset discussed in another thread, it would make for an experience that would be a good step closer to full immersion.
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Permalink Reply by Digado on -
I've made a brief post about 4 developments already taking place to create full immersion - focusing on replicating the 5 senses rather than the interface itself.
To be honest, when looking at the next couple of years I think we will see more organic interactions, but probably more Wii/minority report - style. Even though the concept looks really promising, its not a technology that is likely to find mass adoption very quickly, unlike the Wii. Touch, which is really in a far state of development within the labs of several big players who will want to monetize these concepts first
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Permalink Reply by Ken Walters on -
One area which may be under rated at the moment is knowing the brain is the source of all our sensations. Instead of tactile suits, or similar, why can't we 'trick' the brain into thinking it's feeling, smelling, hearing or seeing things? without an all over covering? would it be possible to do this? without complete immersion?
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Permalink Reply by Digado on
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Ken, visit this link: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/38 - Ray Kurzweil is the leading authority on this topic, I really recommend his books.
or on a more short term scale: http://digado.nl/your-avatar-smells-lovely-today.html
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Permalink Reply by Ken Walters on
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Thanks Digado
the first link was unavailable but the second looks very interesting. I find it a fascinating subject.
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Permalink Reply by Digado on
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First link is working for me, and really worth a listen, its a video of 25 minutes or so on http://www.ted.com - if the link above still isn't working for you visit the url above and search for Ray Kurzweil
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Permalink Reply by Ken Walters on
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Digado
I tried both links with Firefox and IE, but a Symfony page popped up and said a moderator wasn't allowing content to be read. I'm trying to access it from England, I wonder what's going on here?
The avatar smells lovely link was excellent though, I still haven't finished looking at that forum site.
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Permalink Reply by Digado on
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Very weird indeed, both links still working fine here...
Embedded the movie for you, if that still doesnt work i dont know what is going on :)
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Permalink Reply by Ken Walters on
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It worked, Digado, and it was very interesting to listen to his way of thinking and extrapolating information and trends.
It brought to mind an article I read somewhere recently on using human tissue for memory storage in computers,and one on human brain tissue being used to try to build a synaptic robotic brain or faster computer.
The future is fascinating in potential but also scary, I look forward to seeing what it brings.
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Permalink Reply by Nicholas Ernst on
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Thanks for pointing out the movie Digado. Kurzweil puts forth some interesting points, many of which are things we should take into consideration during future discussions for this group.
I have to admit that it is difficult to look ahead and imagine the possibilities of things on the forefront of technology, as it also requires you to look at other technologies and imagine where they will be within a similar time frame. Its one thing to look at the things coming out this year and say "How will this affect us?", but an entirely different situation to sit and think..."How will the /future/ of this affect us?"
I'm not certain which year he was predicting full immersion through neural interfacing (it sounded like 2010 or so, but he tossed out a range of dates for various things), but the latest of his predictions seemed to be less than 20 years from now. With the rate of information transfers increasing so rapidly, many of the current issues with MMOs may not even apply within the next few years.
At times I do have to wonder if we will be able to keep up with advances in hardware as we develop software. How long will it be before even a handfull of the popular virtual environments support new sensory oriented hardware?
Factors of software support, consumer popularity/availability/affordability, and of course the almighty effects of socio-political debate will greatly influence how these technological achievements come into play.
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Permalink Reply by Digado on
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Kurtweil (very rough) timeline is:
2010 as the year for augmented/mixed reality
2020 (ish) as the year of ubiquitous computing
2030 as the year where artificial intelligence will be better as human intelligence
2040-2050 as complete immersion and the 'age of experience economy'
The timeline is closely linked to both the mapping of the human gen (explain the how of the physical body) and nano technology - the ability to influence/program the physical and mental 'body'.
One video showing us a possible scenario into this technology driven future (not to be taken TOO seriously, buts its a good outline) is 'prometeus - the media revolution' (Video at the bottom of the post)
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