Haptic Devices In Second Life

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9075-2564405,00.html

Right you lot, if this article was NOT in the UK London Times and if I had NOT read the UK paper version off line AND if it was NOT at the Davos conference I would have said it was a wind up......

But it is, I have (read the paper version) and it IS mentioned at the Davos conference.

It might still be a massive wind up but.......

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It's so real, it's unreal, claim cyber engineers
Gary Duncan

Millions of internet addicts who devote hours to “virtual reality” existences on websites such as Second Life will soon be able to enjoy a physical experience of cyberspace through “avatars”.
Davos delegates heard from some of the world’s top technologists yesterday. So-called “haptic” interfaces allowing sensory feedback from virtual worlds could become available within months, John Gage, chief researcher at Sun Microsystems, the leading US technology group, and Mitchell Kapor, a consultant and former scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told World Economic Forum participants.

Such haptic devices already exist in very specialised applications, such as surgery simulation. High-tech devices allow doctors to have a physical sensation almost identical to that they would experience if they were actually wielding a scalpel, Mr Gage said. “I’ve done this,” he said. “As you push in, it is exactly what a real surgeon would feel as you probe the brain. No words can describe this.”

But Mr Gage and Mr Kapor said that it was likely to be possible very soon to create much more widely available devices allowing physical experiences of virtual worlds. Mr Kapor said this development was being hastened by Second Life’s decision to make its computer programming code available to any software developer.

There was laughter among delegates as Mr Gage added: “The moment the haptic interface works in Second Life, the porno industry is going to double!” Another delegate noted that the “sex part” of Second Life, with users living out fantasies, is already one of its biggest earners.

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I did read a long time ago disabled people had been trained to use their minds electrical field to control a computer mouse but this is streets ahead, almost science fiction

Comments anyone, is this possible??

(I am sure I am being "had" posting this -

Google "Sinulator"

Max

Haptic tactor technology is pretty old, and isn't that hard to do - I would say, this is a fairly easy technology.


I've worked on some myself as an electrical engineer ages ago, and it's not as complex as one might think. The human brain is really good at translating just about anything into useful information, once it gets used to the input.

For instance, divers working in near zero visibility conditions sometimes get disoriented, and lose their sense of 'up', so a simple solution is a belt with some vibrating elements hooked up to an accelerometer.

Greatly simplified, the side of the belt that is vibrating like a cellphone on silent ring is in the direction of 'up'. Pretty soon, this just translates into a 'sense of up' without thinking about it. The haptic tactor hardware itself can be pretty simple, because Human Brain 1.0 can work out its own optimal software drivers.



I'm not sure that I agree that the 'physical contact' industry is such a big business on the grid, though. We don't hear of people becoming rich simply because they went into the escort business, for instance.

I always judge these things on a 'would I personally buy it' scale - and no, I don't think I would buy much or any of it myself. I *did* buy a force feedback joystick to play Airwarrior II waaay back in the day, and really liked that as a flying experience.

But unless such things as sane sim border crossings and navigable ban-line fields become a reality, I just don't see a lot of the mainstream people on the grid going for this other than maybe for a vehicle.

Sounds like a job for qDot!

I'll have to do some digging, but if I remember correctly, SL started out as an experiment in Haptic hardware....


Update: here it is:

/120/db/47360/1.html#post505040

Thanks for the imput folks.

Seems all type of interesting things are awaiting in the wings of the open source client programe

Someone came to the forums a while back pimping their company's sex toys that tied into SL, I believe. Of course, the usual 20% managed to grab the wrong end of a totally different stick altogether and got into a big crisis about how it could be used for rape, which naturally descended, as these things tend to do, into how it could only lead to the violation of minors and please someone think of the children

OMG, Erin is planning to rape children!

Strange days...

Time to Jack in

Old News, experiments with Haptic devices have been going on for years. Some Game Console systems have offered Simple ones for a Long time (The N-64 Rumble pack for example), it comes as no surprise that newer more sophisticated ones are being developed. I have yet however to see LL publicising an Undertaking to adopt them. I have no doubt though the thought has crossed thier minds.

I wonder though, If one takes ones mind Out of the Gutter for Five Minutes, Can they Imagine uses for Haptic Systems that might make SL More accessable to people with various Physical Disabilities? Remembering that you DO have other anatomical features, How could Haptic Interfaces Enhance your SL Game Play? LL is already Planning Intergrated Voice, so Tactile Feedback Does seem like a Feature that has good potential applications.

Angel.

Having trolled (hate that word!) a Flight Sim site recently, I'd come across a device that sat on the monitor and plotted the orientation of a hat wearers head, reacting to movement by turning the view through the appropriate direction.