Holograms With Haptic Feedback Are Now a Reality
If you’ve seen the movie Minority Report, you probably thought that all that haptic technology was far in the future. Tom Cruise whips out his hands and magically has a whole screen in front of him in the air that he can use to control just about anything.
Somehow his hands know just where to touch. That is from haptic feedback. This is the same idea that makes your PlayStation controller jump when you hit a big obstacle in a racing game, or when you get shot in your favorite shooter game. Haptic feedback makes things more realistic. Now, Microsoft is bringing that reality to you!
The product is their Hololens 2 Goggles. This is an augmented reality headset. It lets you see everything in the real world but overlays whatever you need over the actual things you are seeing. The goggles map your hands so that it can give you an accurate feedback about where you are pressing on the “screen.” How will this all be used?
Microsoft envisions several useful applications in professional settings. First of all, medical students can use it to learn about anatomy and even practice procedures without putting real life patients at risk. Mechanics can also use it to help them envision the inside of motors and find out diagnostic issues. Considering all the above we’d be safe to say that VR could change everything – the popular smartphone included!
This product brings a computer experience to just about anything. The bounds of what we can create are totally becoming blurred. Now that a screen can be anywhere you go, you can get more in depth with just about anything you want to work on. The downside, as with many new technologies, is that it is pretty pricey. The device costs about $3,500. It’s not much if you consider that a really nice and new laptop could be around $2,000, but it is a lot for those who are used to buying less expensive consumer electronics.
