Ultrasound Used To Create Haptics That Can Be Touched and Felt 41
mrspoonsi writes "Bristol University used ultrasound focused to create 3d objects out of the thin air. The research, led by Dr Ben Long and colleagues Professor Sriram Subramanian, Sue Ann Seah and Tom Carter from the University of Bristol's Department of Computer Science, could change the way 3D shapes are used. The new technology could enable surgeons to explore a CT scan by enabling them to feel a disease, such as a tumor, using haptic feedback. The method uses ultrasound, which is focused onto hands above the device and that can be felt. By focussing complex patterns of ultrasound, the air disturbances can be seen as floating 3D shapes. Visually, the researchers have demonstrated the ultrasound patterns by directing the device at a thin layer of oil so that the depressions in the surface can be seen as spots when lit by a lamp. "In the future, people could feel holograms of objects that would not otherwise be touchable, such as feeling the differences between materials in a CT scan or understanding the shapes of artifacts in a museum."
Sexting... (Score:5, Funny)
Just got a whole lot better!
Re: (Score:2)
What happens in the holodeck.... (Score:2)
What happens in the holodeck... gets resold at Quark's bar.
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I laughed at the scene in Demolition Man where Stalone has sex with Sandra Bullock via some kind of VR environment, but now it's starting to look more and more likely to actually become popular. No risk, no need to even be in the same room, and your virtual self can have a much better body than the real you. Lag is going to be interesting.
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Think of the dogs (Score:2)
the method uses ultrasound
Every time you touch it all the dogs in the neighborhood go nutzo. And newborns scream.
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Better than newborns... take one into a maternity store some time and see what happens...
Re:Think of the dogs (Score:4, Interesting)
Every time you touch it all the dogs in the neighborhood go nutzo
Tormented hysterical dogs tearing at the flesh of beached whales, spatially confused elephants wandering into your living room.
I'm bored, said humanity. Let us pump tremendous amounts of LF sonic energy into the air.
Beat frequencies from these devices penetrating walls, resonating and combining with one another, infusing odd corners of adjacent rooms, hallways and buildings with whispers and throbbing tones. People will leave these things turned on, unaware or uncaring that beat frequencies and harmonics create lobes around others' beds tormenting people trying to sleep around them.
Arson will be on the rise.
Whole city blocks will burn.
The sound of breaking glass and tearing metal.
Then, all is quiet once again.
Cue crickets.
You know what it will be used for first (Score:1)
"Are you signing to the deaf in slow motion, or running your invisible pr0n app?"
Seriously? (Score:2)
No holodeck comments yet?
Re: (Score:3)
It took you 33 years to come up with Joe?!
mass effect (Score:2)
This is the official way how holography works in the mass effect universe.
the LCARS standard now in reach (Score:1)
horray! that elusive aspect of the LCARS standard that requires those displayed buttons have haptic feedback is now achievable!
Aiming at the wrong problem. (Score:1)
Improving haptic feedback is a good idea, as the current attempts simply don't feel realistic. However, doctors feeling tumours? Why? That's a sophisticated audience; people who have trained, through qualifications and experience, to understand tumours through imaging. Yes, scrolling through a CT scan with a mouse wheel isn't realistic, but they've learnt to accommodate.
On the other hand, the masses using touchscreen, that's an open market. Maybe it's a worthwhile one, maybe it's not. But that's the market
Obligatory (Score:2)
Internet rule 34. How long will it take?
Klaw has patent (Score:2)
Cool! (Score:2)
Will someone please build me the Tony Stark interface with this stuff?
Kthanksbye.
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Tony Stark would have an "interface". He would be human.
What you want is a Jarvis interface.
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When you're talking about a projected image, those things are not automatically linked. If you have an image up on your computer screen you can touch the screen, but you can't feel anything to let you know one image from another. You feel the screen, not the image. With 3d projections you can have the same problem, and that's where this comes in.
Holodeck (Score:1)
"Seen"? (Score:2)
By focussing complex patterns of ultrasound, the air disturbances can be seen as floating 3D shapes.
I think someone's taken the special effect in the YouTube video too literally. I don't think ultrasound can make visible shapes in air.
See it, touch it, feel it
No, actually, just "touch it, feel it." And those are the same thing really.
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Let down (Score:1)