This article was 1st published on our sister Site, Digital World Native.
Haptic technology aims to simulate the sensation of touch in a virtual or augmented reality setting – so that people can feel the texture & weight of virtual objects. However, despite strides in the right direction, the tech-of-the-tangible is not yet up to speed.
Meta’s (Facebook’s) vision of the metaverse suggests that representative avatars will interact in a virtual space not only via visual stimuli, but audio & tactile sensations too. To this end, Meta has its Reality Labs (RL) Research facility working, on overdrive, to create a haptic glove that could be donned by a user to sense virtual objects in a virtual setting. As far-fetched as this sounds, the reality is that Meta has a working sample, albeit too cumbersome, heavy & wired to be considered consumer optimized at present.
The research team headed by Sean Keller (AR/VR lead for interaction & input research at Reality Labs Research) aims to produce a haptic glove that is lightweight, comfortable & virtually-sensitive enough to make it a mainstream wearable. The idea is that these gloves would be used in conjunction with AR/VR glasses to produce a life-like virtual experience for users.
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