HTC has something else to worry about: it’s facing the prospect of having to fork out for damages if it loses a patent litigation court case to haptics company Immersion. Immersion had been content to stay its U.S. lawsuit against HTC — in order to wait for the completion of an ITC patent investigation — but has now asked for the stay to be lifted so it can seek immediate damages. → Read More
You rarely notice haptics, but when it comes to human-computer interaction, they can make or break a device. That’s why Immersion (the leader in haptic feedback – basically little high-speed motors in phones and other devices that add a vibrational component to on-screen interaction) just announced a way to create amazing haptics for almost all Android phones. Their MOTIV platform… → Read More
Senseg.com is a haptic interface company based in Helsinki, Finland. I met with the CEO, Ville Makinen, who showed us two simple implementations of the system.
Instead of using vibrating motors, the device surface is completely motionless. Instead, the Senseg system stimulates your fingers or hand with an electrical field to simulate the feeling of friction or texture. The only way I can describe… → Read More
From the ‘I’ll Believe it When I See Feel it Dept’: Ultrasonic gaming. Researchers from the University of Tokyo have been working on using focused ultrasound to simulate the feel of objects that aren’t there. Haptic doodads have been floating around for a while, like this Maglev joystick, but this is the first time I’ve seen one that relies on air to create the sensation. → Read More
More news about RIMs anticipated ‘iPhone Killer’ the BlackBerry Thunder, Crackberry.com says RIM’s new touch keyboard kicks ass. The “juicy” details include: localized haptics meaning when you pess the screen, it feels like you pressed a button on the screen, and both a full Qwerty keyboard, when the handsets in landscape mode, and SureType keyboard, for portrait mode. Crackberry also… → Read More
MyTouchKeys is a clear plastic sticker that adds tactile feedback to your iPhone by — wait for it — putting a hole over each of the keyboard keys. While this experience can be replicated by placing gobs of dried earwax or mucous on each of the tiny keys, it is clear that a piece of plastic is a far superior solution. Now, however, I have to clean my damn iPhone. → Read More
[photopress:popmechaptics.jpg,full,center] Meet Mr. Happy In reading this fine site of ours, you’ve no doubt occasionally come across the word “haptic.” What does it mean, you ask. I don’t know, I reply. But Popular Mechanics knows, and they know it so well, they’ve got nearly 2,000 words explaining why it’ll be the next big thing to hit consumer electronics. → Read More
Force feedback plus six dimensions of movement — I like what I’m hearing so far. This yet-to-be-named device has been in the workings for 11+ years by scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and uses a bowl-shaped apparatus connected to a joystick, all of which sits inside a larger bowl-shaped apparatus that magnetically levitates the smaller bowl. There are only ten such devices in… → Read More
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