• Name

Touch Feedback, aka Haptics

• What is the item

Touch-screen computers are as ubiquitous as the iPhone and the ATM.  However, these technologies rarely give humans touch feedback in return.  This is changing.   The study of how to make machines reach out and give humans a tactile response is called "haptics." 

• What Horizon is it on

     First Horizon to Third Horizon to Fourth Horizon

• Explanation of the item 

Some simple haptics applications are currently available to consumers, such as the Wii controller, LG's Dare cell phone and the BlackBerry Storm.   The latter two are touch screen phones which gives a slight pulse when touched.  This way, the user knows when the phone has received input from the user, unlike the iPhone and other touch screen technologies, which give visual confirmation that input has been received, but no tactile confirmation is returned.

The potential for haptic technologies is broad.  As The Washington Post reports:

"Indeed, the touch-surface juggernaut marches relentlessly toward the day when push buttons that physically move in and out are gone forever. Already being conquered are televisions, washers, ovens, printers and workout machines, says Steve Koenig, director of industry analysis at the Consumer Electronics Association. Touch screens are now invading dashboards, desktop phones, remote controls, music players, navigators and cameras."  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/14/AR2008121402455.html?wprss=rss_print/style&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wp-dyn/rss/print/style/index_xml+(washingtonpost.com+-+Style)&nav=emailpage

"The big problem is that no matter how much you gussy it up, touching a flat computer screen feels like touching a flat computer screen. It can have as many flashing, beeping pictures of buttons as you like, but there's something about the human brain that doesn't trust those little icons. We mash them again and again, our primal lizard ape brains not believing those icons are actually responding to us -- because it feels all wrong."

Researchers are attempting to use the technology to improve medical procedures:

"Robot-assisted surgery has been around for some time, but the surgeon usually stares at a screen to see where the scalpel is going. The way to achieve superhuman steady hands, Alison Okamura of Johns Hopkins explains, is by engaging touch. Computer-mediated feedback makes one's hands feel as if they are maneuvering through goo. Or, say, if you want to peel a very thin membrane off the back of the retina but you don't want to puncture the retina itself. Virtual feedback can guide the surgeon's hands."  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/14/AR2008121402455_2.html?wprss=rss_print/style&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wp-dyn/rss/print/style/index_xml+(washingtonpost.com+-+Style)&nav=emailpage

Haptics has also reached the gaming industry.  The University of Pennsylvania has been developing a tactile gaming vest, which in its early application has been applied to enhance the video gaming experience.  The vest vibrated when the user's video game character is shot or stabbed, giving them a haptic feedback to the game's situations. 

"Four solenoid actuators in the chest and shoulders in front, plus two solenoids in the back, give you the feeling of a gunshot, says Saurabh Palan, a graduate student who works on the project. In addition, vibrating eccentric-mass motors clustered against the shoulder blades make you feel a slashing effect as you get stabbed from behind. Currently there is no feedback from your own weapons as you fire, just from weapons aimed at you. 

"The solenoids and shoulder vibrators are controlled by custom electronics and linked to the game, so if your character gets shot from a certain direction, the appropriate solenoid “fires.” That makes it better than, say, laser tag, which makes your whole vest vibrate but doesn’t give you a hint as to where the shot came from. In that sense, then, the gaming vest is closer to a paintball excursion, but it doesn’t hurt as much (and there’s no messy paint to clean up afterwards). 

Researchers also state that potential applications of the technology include training for members of the military and to enhance movie watching experiences (when a movie character gets shot or punched, a viewer would be able to feel what the character is feeling by wearing the vest.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-software/tactile-gaming-vest-punches-and-slices

• Photos (if available)

Alison Okamura, director of Johns Hopkins     The Blackberry Storm and the LG Dare are devices that are employing

Haptics Laboratory, works with robots and     haptics technology--tactile feedback to the user.

devices that can help surgeons operate

with a steadier hand.

University of Pennsylvania's gaming vest enhances the user's gaming experience

by giving him tactile feedback as the game progresses. 

Play Station utilizing haptics in 2011

• Issues

Haptics technology has many obstacles to overcome.  For example, there is the problem of temperature.  Our touch is exquisitely sensitive to temperature. How would you make a computer convey that? Put your hand on one of the concrete uprights on the haptics lab's wall. It's cool to the touch. Then put your hand on a metal chase. It feels colder. A wooden desk feels warmer. Actually, they are all the same -- room temperature.

"The metal "feels cold because the heat rapidly moves from my hand into the object," says David Grow, one of the haptics lab's grad students. "But it's no colder than the concrete next to it," says Okamura.

"How do you teach a computer to tell your brain all that?"  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/14/AR2008121402455_3.html?wprss=rss_print/style&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wp-dyn/rss/print/style/index_xml+(washingtonpost.com+-+Style)&nav=emailpage  And how do you program a computer to distinguish between wood and plastic?  Cotton and nylon?  The list could go on.

Then there is the question of how far do we take the technology.   The Washington Post continues: 

"'So how do we move from wow and games and the fun part into practical business tools that you can't live without?" asks Chuck Joseph, general manager of the touch interface products group at Immersion. He's been through this sort of thing before, helping transform global positioning from something only the military had into so much a part of our lives that 'now kids have it in their shoes.'

"He remembers getting the attention of the CEO of a multibillion-dollar company by taking a sophisticated surveying tool and making it something you could understand without looking at it. "It has touch-screen, but when the surveyor is walking around looking at that screen and trying to touch it, he's tripping, he's falling, he's got a backpack on, he's got an antenna at the end of the pole." So Joseph's crew transformed it into something like a touch Geiger counter. The closer the target, the stronger the vibration.

"Warm, warm, warmer, warmer, hot, hot, hot.

"'Imagine that coming into your friend-finder,' Schaeffer says. 'Teenagers at the mall. Or you're trying to figure out where you're going and sometimes you can't hear on a busy street corner. So your GPS can have that feeling to turn left or right, or keep coming.

"'As a mom, you can have messaging and alerts that feel different. I'll know it's my son, even if I have my sound off. And I'll know what priority it is. If this is an SOS, I would walk out of this meeting to take the call. It could feel like whatever we wanted to make it feel like -- a heartbeat.'

"Immersion employs people called 'haptic artists' who build touch effects. 'It's just like composing music or painting a picture. It's the creation of feeling,' says Schaeffer.

"Can you transmit a kiss?

"'We can transmit a slap,' she says. 'That's one of my favorites, for when you get "I'm coming home late." '

"What about sex?"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/14/AR2008121402455_4.html?wprss=rss_print/style&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wp-dyn/rss/print/style/index_xml+(washingtonpost.com+-+Style)&nav=emailpage

These are all issues that will come up as the technology evolves. 

See also: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/24679/?nlid=2797&a=f

• Sources

 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/14/AR2008121402455.html?wprss=rss_print/style&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+wp-dyn/rss/print/style/index_xml+%28washingtonpost.com+-+Style%29&nav=emailpage

http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/robotics-software/tactile-gaming-vest-punches-and-slices

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koRHYqrR9yM

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