Technology developed by Disney Research could be used to provide advanced tactile feedback to real-world surfaces and objects, including touch-screens, walls, furniture, wooden, or plastic objects, without requiring users to wear special gloves or use force-feedback devices. Named REVEL, the technology employs reverse electrovibration to create the illusion of changing textures as the user’s fingers… »
In their effort to study the effectiveness of haptic technology – technology that takes provides feedback to user’s sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations or motions – researchers from the Vanderbilt University designed an application that could assist visually impaired students to master algebra, geometry, graphing and other subjects that are particularly hard to… »
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a glove with a special fingertip which employs stochastic resonance in order to improve the wearer’s sense of touch and motor performance. The technology could be used to assist individuals whose jobs require high-precision manual dexterity or those with medical conditions that reduce their sense of… »
As we already wrote in our previous articles, scientists around the world are working to develop pressure sensors for artificial skin which could be applied on prosthetic limbs or robots. By sandwiching a precisely molded, highly elastic rubber layer between two parallel electrodes, the team from Stanford University created an electronic sensor that can detect… »
Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) announced the i3Space – a system that provides a feeling of touch when users interact with a 3D image. Unlike the Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display we described in one of our previous articles, the i3Space recognizes the movement of fingers and coordinates the Virtual Reality… »
Since most of the procedures in modern surgery are performed with remote controlled tools that can be inserted into the body using only small incisions, laparoscopic surgery skips the need for large incisions and, in turn, usually results in shorter recovery times for patients. An interdisciplinary team of researchers, led by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, is… »
Wheatear you use instant messaging to keep in touch with people you love or cooperate, or use it to keep the pesky people at distance you had to be introduced to the emoticons or smileys. A husband-and-wife team of scientists based in Japan felt emoticons weren’t enough for people to express and came up with… »
Developed by EU researchers, the Smart Hand is a complex prosthesis with four motors and forty sensors designed to provide realistic motion and sense to the user. Te sensors enabled it to become the first device of its kind to send signals back to the wearer, allowing them to feel what they touch. Phantom limb… »
