Touching elements in augmented reality? It will soon be possible thanks to Meta
Meta had announced the launch of their project to create a haptic glove so that augmented reality users can experience the sensation of touch in augmented reality worlds. The creation of this glove is still at the prototype stage but the promise is encouraging. Although the prototype is still far from being perfected, the tests are nevertheless moving in the right direction. This haptic glove aims to give immersive augmented reality users realistic touch sensations.
Thanks to this technology, it will be possible to feel a handshake or the weight of an object in it. It will also be possible to feel the shape of an object, such as the corners of a square.
Meta innovation: a sensory glove
In order to regain this natural feeling, the glove technology does not recreate not entirely the sensation of physical touch. In reality, the aim is rather to deceive the brain with partial sensations that give the illusion of a real sensation.
The real innovation lies in having the sensation of touch on the whole hand including the palm and not just on the fingertips.
This glove is intended to be used for the metaverse accompanying a virtual reality headset, which will greatly enhance the user experience. It is about making immersion completely tangible.
The glove is actually equipped with hundreds of small, flexible motors that move through a pneumatic process. A processor controls the flow of air that inflates the actuators, and the glove exerts slight pressure on the hand to create a more real sensation. The challenge is to avoid latency as much as possible to make the experience more realistic.
There is still a question about the durability of the glove, and no doubt that Meta will have to address this issue in order to cope with international marketing.
This technology under development opens the door to the development of immersions in the metaverse that Meta has promised to develop. We can only look forward to being able to immerse ourselves in a parallel world in the image of the universe of Ready Player One directed by Steven Spielberg.
It is therefore with the ideal of creating a real "Oasis" that these technologies are being developed.
As Meta is not the only company working on haptic feedback, the group is already facing a lawsuit.
Indeed, the American start-up Hapt'x, which has been working on haptic gloves since 2012, claims that Meta's haptic gloves are very similar to Hapt'x's technology and therefore infringe their patent. However Jake Rubin opens the door to a settlement by stating "We look forward to working with them to reach a fair and equitable agreement that addresses our concerns and allows them to incorporate our innovative technology into their future consumer products.
To date Meta does not appear to have made contact with Hapt'x for any arrangement.
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