HAPTIC
Magic
TECHNOLOGY
touch
Advanced tactile interfaces that enable users to ‘feel’ the digital world could take
our relationship with computers to a new level. Jon Excell reports
GARY TODD’S technology makes people
feel sick. While this may sound like a
strange reason for celebration, Todd has
good reason to be pleased. His invention,
a simulator for training medical workers
in venepuncture — sticking a needle in a
vein — is said to look and feel so much
like the real thing that the NHS is poised
to make it a key training tool. It has even
induced nausea in some squeamish
students.
Todd’s system, Virtual Veins, is just
one example of a range of emerging
technologies (from advanced touch
screens to robot exoskeletons that enable
wearers to become fully immersed in a
virtual environment) that promise to
bridge the gap between the digital world
16
and reality, and regain a vital human
touch in our dealings with computers.
The systems under the spotlight
belong to the emerging field of haptic
technology — from the Greek for touch
— the science of applying touch and
control to interaction with computers.
Most of us are familiar with a
primitive version of the concept in the
form of the tiny motors that make our
mobile phones vibrate. But the internet
is alive with rumours that everyone
from Apple to RIM (the manufacturer
of the BlackBerry) is poised to take the
technology to the next level with
advanced touch screens that fool the
user into feeling a range of sensations.
Most recently, mobile phone giant
Nokia demonstrated a haptic touch
screen on one of its handheld internet
browsers. Engineers at the company’s
Helsinki research centre inserted
piezoelectric actuators behind the
touch screen that can be optimised and
controlled to produce vibrations
that mimic a range of tactile
sensations, such as pushing a button,
or flicking a switch.
Roope Takala, who heads the
Haptikos project, believes there is a
compelling case for haptic
touchscreens but cites a two to
five-year gap between research and
development and final product, and
was tight-lipped on when Nokia’s
screen will make its commercial debut.
the EnGIneeR 28 JULY–17 AUGUST 2008
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