Meta & Ultrahaptics & Other Augmented Reality. -- CES

I had a chance to test Meta with Ultrahaptics. This combination is amazing. You really can feel something in the middle of space. The haptic effect is in space, and they make it go with ultrasound.

The display of the meta is pretty good (relative to other AR) but in my experience still distant from what Microvision is capable of. He knew the name Microvision but deflected any deeper inquiries. It's obvious that the two companies have some connections -- how many and how deep I don't know, but Microvision has to be on Meta's Radar, and the other way around as well.

The headset is not comfortable to wear, It's heavy and it made my head feel unbalanced. The field of view left a lot to be desired. It's also a tethered system... so far....Microsoft is ahead of them in that department, but the whole space has a lot of moving parts. (the control interface, the software, the display, applications, etc.) So far, best near eye display I've seen is Microvision's -- and it's WAY ahead of anything else I've seen. 

The haptics works through a kind of mat --- so the area is limited.

This is still an emerging technology that has a LOT of interest from a lot of people.... and there are very good reasons for the interest. -- Increased productivity, and the ability to see 3D images. (see MRI video below) There's a lot to be done on the software side... and it will need a better display which Microvision can supply.


Asked David for a picture so I could be sure to remember just who I talked to.

If you have ever looked at MRI films and tried to understand what they were about, this should look amazing. Now imagine being able to walk around it and get it from different perspectives.... I saw that with the Hololens...  (but again, the hololens display could use some significant improvement.) 

UltraHaptics

This is a company that deserves to be on everyone's radar.

As Augmented Reality gets going, I'm quite sure that this is going to be everywhere. Gesture control is cool, but if you can make it feel like you're manipulating someTHING, that's way better -- the gestures will be more precise.

Microvision will be involved  -- putting stuff in thin are requires knowing where things in thin air are. (After all, they need a display -- AND the 3D scanning -- and probably touch-projection too.)


TheMemo

In your car. In your kitchen. Ultrahaptics lets you feel objects that don't really exist.

Minority Report set our expectations high.

After watching it, we all figured that soon, just like Tom Cruise, we’d be waving our hands in mid-air to get shit done.

Now though, Ultrahaptics is making gesture control a reality: in your car, in your kitchen, everywhere.

“We’re better than Minority Report – you don’t have to wear gloves,” says co-founder Tom Carter.

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“Ultrahaptics lets you feel things in the air,” he explains. “We can make the sensations of buttons or switches, or enable you to feel 3D objects and sensations that don’t exist in the real world.”

Ultrahaptics

That little buzz you feel in your phone when you touch it... and it wants to be clear that you know you've done something is "haptic" feedback.

Ultrahaptics, has come up with a way to make you feel stuff without touching it. (I'm really curious to try this.) 

If true and pure gesture control is going to happen, I think this will be required-- otherwise it will be very difficult for software to figure out what all of our sloppy gestures mean.

This is a part of the whole ecosystem, and without this kind of feedback there will probably be an intermediate step to common gesture control (like the post yesterday.)