Force-Feedback Devices Provide Virtual Texture

Verteiron writes: "Saw this over at ComputerWorld. Looks like Logitech, among others, is starting to take the field of force-feedback out of the gaming world and onto the desktop. Apparently this new kind of mouse has a motor in it that can simulate various textures as you move it across your screen, letting you "feel" icons and windows. This is more than a gimmick: "people complete basic cursor-targeting tasks faster with tactile feedback". Another device featured is the Phantom, a nifty creation of SensAble Technologies. It goes one step further, allowing you to trace a fingertip across the surface of a virtual object, feeling its contours, tracing edges and even allowing you to sculpt and deform what's on the screen." Can we see support in Linux 2.6, please?

Comments

Re:Linux 2.6 support.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yea, heaven FORBID you ask for Open Source code, so BSD, BeOS, OS/2, Mac and others can use the product.

Just ask for Linux support, exclude the REST of the market.

(This attitude of 'linux support' is different than asking for 'windows support' exactly how?)

Re:Is has to be said

[Waiting]

> obvious use for this technology would
> be the pr0n industry. Anyone care to
> patent it while they have the chance?

Too late:

www.fufme.com

matt

WTF

[arothstein]

Can we see support in Linux 2.6, please?

Timothy, your blatent attempt to tie this rehashed story to Linux is laughable. You need to work on your segues.

Great development for the blind

[Platinum Dragon]

I think this development of force-feedback response for normal computer tasks is a greater development than any kind of "talk-type" software, in that now GUI interfaces can be truly accessible for the blind.

Think of it. Instead of rolling the mouse or trackball around, blindly trying to hit the "sweet spot" that will trigger the vocal signal, or being stuck with a command line interface that no one (in the Windows/Mac world) programs for, force-feedback reactions to desktop features and talk-response can be combined to make point-and-click applications and interfaces really usable. In effect, the mouse and mousing surface can replace the monitor.

I'd buy a force-feedback mouse and apps just to support the technology, even though I still have enough sight to use a normal computer (albeit with a honking huge monitor that I still sit almost nose-to-screen with). This is really good news when it comes to making computers accessible to those of us who got dealt a bad hand at birth:)
-------------

Re:Great development for the blind

[flump]

If anyone is interested in the actual user interface research going using force feedback devices like the logitech mice and the phantom then you could do worse than check out this workshop Other good resources on the web are the various phantom based PUG and PURS workshops ASME have some sort of annual winter symposium aswell but I forget the url......

Re:Great development for the blind

[savaget]

Imagine if a similar feedback device could "feel" ascii characters or braile characters and give the visually impaired or blind even more access to online or computer text.

this is so important

[kootch]

that it needs to be posted as three different stories at different times?

See the Web, Touch the Web?
Logitech's "Mouse that Feels"
and today's Force-Feedba ck Devices Provide Virtual Texture

can the editor's please check to see if a story has been posted before? and maybe if you want to have a continuing story/saga, at least link to the previous discussions in the related links section.

Bah, old hat...

[Pig Hogger]

I remember, some 25 years ago, a radio receiver which applied a solenoid-actuated brake on the tuning knob whenever a station was tuned. It provided good tactile feedback as you searched for a station... Was it made by Marantz???

--
Americans are bred for stupidity.

aw man...

[sporty]

i hope this doesn't become some sorta bad cheap alternative to real doll. I can imagine it now, all the rage: force feed back porn pages...

---

Re:Seen this Logitech back in Aug 21 /.

[iElucidate]

Or for science and tech w/out an open-source slant, check out MindWire.org. Yeah, I know it's a blatant and shameless plug. But hey, it's non profit *.org, so that's okay, right? :-)

DMCA

[LiENUS]

Can we see support in Linux 2.6, please? Well thanks to the DMCA we probably wont see free linux drivers anymore :(

Research

[Dungeon Dweller]

We have several phantom devices at the virtual environments lab at my university. They are pretty pricy (in the thousands) a piece. One historic event that we did recently, is the first international handshake, using phantom devices, at the recent VSMM conference. Pretty neat devices.

Re:Finally!

[Moofie]

Dude, just go play with a truck inner tube. Same thing.

How would you feel...

[2Bits]

if you scroll cursor over a thorny application?

These mice are overrated.

[ChaosDiscord]

I'm used two of these mice, and they're vastly overrated.

The WingMan Force Feedback Mouse

This mouse is permenantly mounted to its "mouse pad". Movement is limited to about two inches of movement either way. The motion isn't absolute to the screen, so it's possible to end up in the middle of the screen and unable to move to the right. (You work around it by slowly moving left, then quickly moving right.) This is very frustrating.

Because the mouse is connected to the mouse pad, it can actually push back against you. It's a neat trick, but I'm not real sure about the value. When playing a game, having your mouse kick back when you fire would be distracting. Worse, being locked to the pad means that in a first person shooter, you can end up unable to turn in a direction.

Using their web browser plugin, a web page author can push your mouse around, or give a graphic a simplistic texture. Just what I need, my mouse to gravitate towards the "Purchase Now". Or, oooh, I can _feel_ the Slashdot logo. Yippee. It's got all of the apeal of a BLINK tag or a web site entirely designed in Flash.

The strangest feature is that the mouse can generate simple tones by vibrating. It's a creepy feeling. I don't want my mouse to feel like an electric razer, and I want my audio to come from my nice sound card. It's such a bad idea that I suspect it's a side effect of the design that they decided to call a feature.

The only potential advantage is that once their drive is installed, menu items subtly "click". So do links in Internet Explorer. I didn't particularly like it, but I can see it making "hitting the target" easier.

All in all, I'd rather have a nice mouse I can actually pick up.

iFeel Mouse

On the up side it is a nice optical mouse. But they sell cheaper optical mice. Because it's not attached to a mouse pad, all it can do is vibrate. You don't sense any particular texture. You don't feel it push in any direction. It just vibrates. Push it over a textured web graphic and it vibrates. Fire a gun in a game and it vibrates. Move it over a link and it vibrates. It's as complex and useful as a "rumble pack" for a console controller. Oh, and it does the vibrating tone thing, but barely audiably.

It's a lot more practically useful than the WingMan mouse, but you're still paying a premium for a silly idea. Just buy a nice optical mouse without force feedback. Logitech even makes those.

Re:These mice are overrated.

[ChaosDiscord]

There are two arguments I see against using some sort of resistance or force on the mouse wheels which are connected to the mouse ball:

1. Mice are moving to optical inputs. Optical mice are very smooth, hard to "clog", and work on almost any surface. Once you loose the mouse ball, it's no longer available to emit forced into.
2. Any non-trivial force is going to require more power than is available from USB or PS/2 Mouse Port. This is why the WingMan Mouse has a power cord. I'm not sure I want another power plug to drive my mouse

Re:These mice are overrated.

[The Cookie Monster]

I've thought about how to do a working force feedback mouse before, never came up with anything revolutionary tho.

The problem with braking systems (such as the one you suggested) is they can't move the mouse - only resist it (guideing the mouse to stay in a scrollbar etc really wants to be active rather than passive resistance), and more importantly, generally they can't resist in an arbitrary direction (probably all of the breaking systems I thought up suffered from this to some degree).

Using the rotating pins of the mouse as brakes means you can only control it if it's moving in an orthangonal line. For instance, if there was a diagonal area to avoid, you want to be able to drag the mouse along it's edge with no resistance, but not across it and because your breaks can't break in an arbitrary direction the best you could do is clamp down both rollers whenever the mouse is moving in a direction that crosses the area to avoid, unfortunately as the mouse clamps down it becomes less able to determine what direction it is being pushed in (and hense, whether it should break).
It's also going to have implementation issues, such as one break coming on slightly faster than the other - making your mouse tend to move orthonally (and screw up attempts to determine the direction it's being pushed). That's assuming the ball has the required grip on the surface and doesn't just start skidding whenever the brakes come on (something even non-braking mice do).

One of the ideas I had that was better than most of the others was to give up on force feedback for now and concerntrate on tactile feedback (which I think is just as important but practical.

Eg, take an optical mouse and put 3 teflon/nylon feet on it, each of which can be raised and lowered about 4mm independantly of the others. This gives 3 (more precise) degrees of control over the way the mouse handles (up/down, rotate forward/back, rotate left/right).

Re:Is has to be said

[MaxGrant]

If it's a hoax, it's very thorough and elaborate, right down to the carefully worded Y2K statement. I followed every link on the site and didn't encounter a fooled-you! page anywhere.
The only thing that's suspicious is that the face of the actual unit is a little "cleaner" to my eyes than a real piece of plastic would be. The lines are just too bright and even; I don't see any texture at all.

It looks for all the world like someone has taken a regular picture of a CD-rom and touched up the face. I zoomed up the jpegs to about 800% and couldn't find anything suspicious; though I'm by no means any kind of expert on digital fakery. I've seen it and done it, but almost anyone could. Also, what the hell is that button on the right supposed to be for? "Eject?"

Ok, I'm getting ever more curious. First of all, there's no place on the order form (gave a fictitious name and address, duh) for any kind of billing. All it asks for is your name, a country, and a valid email address. And an item and quantity. When I clicked "place order" it informed me that all servers were busy. That seems highly unlikely, as they weren't too busy to show me the pictures of the unit.

www.fufme.com is actually "scooby.valueweb.net" according to my DNS server.

My final opinion: either someone's paying a lot of money to have a big laugh, is conducting some sort of cybersex survey, or is running a full-blown scam. The only reason I discount the latter is there doesn't appear to be any way to actually buy one of these. I think it's a survey.

There. Is everyone laughing? Thank you.

Re:I wonder (two quick thoughts)

[dawg of the south]

I wonder what slashdot reading would be like with texture.......

I can see moving your mouse over some posts might be like driving down a gravel road, way out in the country.. or a cobble stone street.

Or the Beowulf comments having strong gravity because most of them just suck

So how long till there are html tags for Force feedback?



I wonder if they are going to interface this technology with the new circular disk drives?....
for all the lonely geeks like me!.




~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Logitech's Cookie Catch

[Kaiwen]

Silly catch-22 of the day:

The Logitech site won't let me log in because I have cookies disabled. It tells me I can find more info at the "Security and You" page, but it won't let me read the page unless I first enable cookies.

Nice.

Lee Kai Wen - Taiwan, ROC

Re:Is has to be said

[curiosity]

It must be a hoax. The pictures clearly show the Laser warning from a CD-ROM, and obviously a dildo doesn't need a laser. The tech support page has no question about how you're connecting to the net, which, for a product designed for realtime network communication, is odd. That'd be the first thing I'd check in case of a problem. How do you clean it? Injecting liquid into an electronic device isn't smart. The Male version (for women) makes no sense - computer drive bays aren't on the bottom, and plastic doesn't stress well - it'd break off. What would the female version (for men) be made of? The "lips" are plastic. Sticking anything in there would hurt, I assure you. Plus it's too small. The hole is less than 2 inches across. It can't be any bigger, because it fits into a half-height drive bay. With allowances for the insulation/sanitation system (some kind of rubber I would imagine) and rubber "lips", it's just not big enough for even the average guy. And, of course, as you said, the units look too clean, and the order form could be written by a monkey with a 4 page HTML primer.

Phantom at MIT

[naoursla]

I got to play with a Phantom during a recent tour of the AI lab at MIT. Way cool stuff. They are doing research on using this for minimally invasive surgery tecniques. Tools enter the body through a small hole and surgeons can using imaging techniques and feed back from devices like the phantom to operate without acutally see things. I think it can also be used to train surgeons since it can simulate the forces of a real surgical procedure.

There is a group at UNC using a Phantom to provide tactile feedback when manipulating viruses. These things start around $10,000 though.

Haptic Intercourse, er, Interface

[oxytocin]

No Linux drivers yet!

Can I communicate with partners who use different computers than I do?

Presently FuckU-FuckMe only works with Windows 95, Windows 98 and Windows NT. Macintosh and Linux versions are currently being developed.

There is Linux support

[katmaikni]

Can we see support in Linux 2.6, please?

According to SensAble's website "Compatibility with standard PCs and UNIX workstations". I interpret that as possible Linux compatibility.
Oh the joys of feeling porno...

Immersion licenses force feedback mice

[ChaosDiscord]

The company which licenses the force feedback mouse technology is Immersion.

Possibly useful for the blind

[ChaosDiscord]

Someone emailed me asking for advice on these mice for a blind friend. This is an area I don't know much about this area, but perhaps some elaboration on the the menu and icon "stickiness" provided will be help.

The WingMan mouse actually makes menus, icons, and links slighty "sticky". There is ever so slight resistance to move away. This would make it easier to hit menu and icon targets. On the other hand, the mouses restricted range of motion is very frustrating. If your friend is blind, he may not be able to tell that the mouse cursor isn't at the right edge of the screen, but the mouse is at the right edge of the pad.

The iFeel mice (Logitech) produces a single "click" when you move onto a menu item or icon. There isn't any indication that you've moved off of the target. While it would make it easier to tell that you've moved onto the target, you don't get any warning that you've moved off. On the up side, it's a normal mouse not physically connected to a mouse pad.

Both mice have some control panel options for how they react, but I'm not really in a position to seriously play with their options. Both mice fail to detect icons and buttons in some cases, particularly when a program ignores the Windows API and creates custom controls.

I'd err on the side of the Wingman, the feedback seems more meaningful. Unfortunately, it's very hard to guess how frustrating the restricted range of motion will be for someone who can't see the cursor. It is certainly something that could be adapted to.

Obviously, if anyone has any real experience with this, please let us know!

target icons?

[djKing]

What's with that?

What I want to know is can it let me know when I have a lock on those camping *&!s in quake III

-Peace
Dave

Can anyone actually see the phantom?

[truffle]

The photos of the phantom are dark, and the hand of the user using the device is blurry (more than one hand frame, taken in motion). The result is, an entire incomprehendible visual representation for me. If only it had been called "The Glowstick".

Truffle

Re:Mouse for the blind?

[neafevoc]

I see where you're getting at, and that's great that the blind can use computers. Though, I'm wondering what a blind person could do with a computer.

Take our office applications, or maybe our Internet tools (browsers, email, usenet, etc), and how can the blind apply to all of those... currently. That's what I was trying to figure out

As oppose to the real-life... there is a way of communication from the blind to the seeing whether it be sound or touch. We can talk to them, they can talk to us. That's simple enough. But as for writing them a letter, it would have to translated to Braille for them to read it.

So I'm wondering how the seeing's computer application work for the blind. Yeah, I know. The blind can type on the keyboard. And sure, the computer can read it back. What about the web...

Nevermind, I just answered my own question. Bring on that feedback mouse!

--
Neafevoc

Re:I wonder

[Chuchi]

Well they will need to pay me as I have decided to patent the HSML (Hyper Sensations Markup Language) :-)

Re:Seen this Logitech back in Aug 21 /.

[garcia]

I love how interesting articles get abandoned yet repeat articles get posted.. I really don't understand. This has been an ever increasing problem here. I have never seen so many repeats :( But then again, what do I know?

-Bill

Phantom

[Scutter]

I saw a device like the Phantom at Comdex a few years ago. It was basically a harness that you put two or three fingers into which provided tactile feedback for CAD designers and stuff. It was extremely cool. The demonstration was stacking virtual blocks and moving virtual furniture. The presenter refused to comment on the pr0n applications.

new use coming to reality...

[unformed]

virtual sex...move the mouse over the tit and wala!
--------------

Re:Seen this Logitech back in Aug 21 /.

[abischof]

• I love how interesting articles get abandoned yet repeat articles get posted.. I really don't understand.

In that case, you may be interested to check out Kuro5hin and/or Half-Empty. Both sites are similar to Slashdot, only different ;).

Alex Bischoff
---

Excellent (brief) background article

[new500]

. .

Since I know nothing about this subject since yesterday when I came across

this excellent review of SensAble feedback device in Byte.com

the link's all I have to say. But the review of the SensAble kit seems to have some good insights.

==Idle Random Thoughts. Usual Disclaimers Apply==

Tell me you don't see the /. potential for this...

[ackthpt]

Roblimo writes: Out of my own pocket, a free Phantom to each first poster on new articles!

Troll: Oh, yeah! [reload][reload][reload][reload][reload]...nth[rel oad] Ha! New article!
FROST PIST
[Submit]

New mail received from Roblimo@slashdot.org
Grats, send me your mailing
address and it'll be on the way!
Rob

[1 week later]
Troll: This thing rocks, I've never felt so close to Natalie Portman before! Ah, a new post.

TSRIF TSOP
(Mouse pointer moves over submit button)

WHOOMPF!
Troll: AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE! MY HAND!!!

G'wan, admit it, this idea passed through your minds...


--
Chief Frog Inspector

Phantom

[donnz]

What I haven't been able to tell from their site is whether there are applications for people with visual impairments - even completely blind. Could this replace brail?

Re:Nothing new here...

[binford2k]

The optical iFeel mouse is $39 at Fry's.

try it on a picture of Natalie Portman

[peter303]

Oooh! That fills good!

Someone has coined the term "teledildos" for
remove feedback "devices" that could be used
on a computer. Either a live person on the
other end, or a computer program/recording.

Wingman commander

[Y2K is bogus]

I have the wingman commander and it definitely isn't a mouse. They claim it is, but mice don't have bounding limits and the commander does. It has feedback for games that support it, but you have to use it as a joystick in games like Ut or q3. It cost's $99 and is a complete waste of money. Other than it's cool feedback test buttons and dragging on the desktop, it sucks.

My 2 cents.

Re:A Little Late...

[Mr. Piccolo]

But using "less" instead of "fewer" would save you a byte!

Now, you have no excuses... :-)

Re:I wonder

[eudas]

you laugh now...

watch it happen tomorrow.

eudas

Re:Is has to be said

[Maggot75]

Well, yeah, this might also mean that some nerds I know (uh a friend of mine) may get to know what sex actually feels like. This would get them all addicted to sex with computers and bring down the open source movement!
This may not be allowed to happen! It's all a ploy from Microsoft. I know they started something about naked computers, trying to delude us nerds with imagery of steaming hot computer-flesh.
Call me paranoid, but I at least will continue to have sex^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H use just my keyboard.

Re:Mouse for the blind?

[neafevoc]

That would be great, but we would have to think about how it would benefit the blind

Sure, when I thought it would be a great idea at first. But would this mean the blind would feel the icon... click on it, then... what? What would happen next? An image would come up for them to see... now a text document that would come up is a different matter...

...Like Braille! That's a great idea! Hmm... but I guess they're already working on something like that... there goes my patent...

Anyway, as for modern application, the blind wouldn't really have any immediate use for a feedback mouse... due to the fact I don't know any applications that are based on just sound (voice recognition)?

I think I'll stop now before I make an idiot of myself :)

--
Neafevoc

Re:Is has to be said

[Verteiron]

There was a movie or TV show with this sorta plot... cybersex was so real that some people never had the real thing, and never missed it... then they started to get paranoid about it, thinkin' about diseases (in a future where STDs had been wiped out) and such... anyone have any idea what this movie was? Now I'm wondering...

Re:Is has to be said

[Verteiron]

Dang it, I checked the little box... :P

It would have to be supported at several layers

[wowbagger]

For this sort of thing to work well under Linux, it would have to be supported at several layers:

1. The kernel would have to provide a device independant way to control the basics of the device. You'd about have to make /dev/mouse a read/write device, or create a /dev/mouse/feedback device. Otherwise, Logitec vs. Kingman vs. Microsoft .... ugh.
2. X would have to provide a basic layer to map "textures" to drawable objects. Thus, as the mouse moved over the screen, X would then notify the mouse what texture to use. Could this be some sort of "beta" channel (as opposed to an alpha channel)?
3. The widget set (GTK/QT/Motif(ugh)) would have to allow texture to be a new property of the widget.
4. Lastly, there would have to be some agreed-upon "standard" for what textures mean what things: does "rough" mean greyed-out, or activated?

Of course, we could just slop it in any old way.

No, wait. Excuse me. Long day at the office. I confused proper programmers with that other OS.

Re:Is has to be said

[Garpenlov]

There was a movie or TV show with this sorta plot... cybersex was so real that some people never had the real thing, and never missed it... then they started to get paranoid about it, thinkin' about diseases (in a future where STDs had been wiped out) and such... anyone have any idea what this movie was

Well, there was something similar in Demolition Man, but that's probably not what you're thinking of..

Can you feel the frags?

[da3dAlus]

Does this mean that I can now feel the little gib-bits of my opponents under my feet when playing Quake3?
Oooooo, that was squishy!

Re:Mouse for the blind?

[DestinyBWL]

Actually I have led the blind through configuring certain things in windows via phone before. Usually what happens is that when a screen comes up a voice quickly says everything in the window. It even says stuff like "ok button", "cancel button", etc. The people I dealt with used just the keyboard to navigate, and when something highlighted it would say what it was ie: "radio button Enable so...etc". So if you had a force feedback mouse, along with a voice that said what the mouse moved over.... See what I am getting at?
Bradford L.

Re:Mouse for the blind?

[DestinyBWL]

I was typing it inbetween work. Sorry, should have used something other than trés. Man, people are so dang critical sometimes. =P
Bradford L.

You need to bEowulf

[loreofborg]

the handheld force feedback controllers. Imagine having them all vibrate at the same time.

The Phantom is incredible

[hooded1]

While visiting the MIT AI labs, i had the honor to use a phantom (or at least a prototype of it). This thing was almsot like a drug. The five minutes i used it made be addicted. Being able to feel and move around objects which do not actualyl exist is truly amazing. It is a feel which i cannot wholy describe. Needless to say it was painfully hard returning to my normal mouse. The potential for phantom like products is stagery. They are already being widely used in graphics design and engineering. However, like msot technologies it would be very popular for entertainment purposes. Combinded with 3D glasses and a nice video card it would allow for some very itneresting 3D GUIs.

Kernel?

[TheTomcat]

Can we see support in Linux 2.6, please?

Wouldn't this be more of a 'Forced Feedback Driver for X' thing than a kernel support in 2.6 thing?

Re:Kernel?

[evilned]

On top of that, isnt the 2.5 series supposed to end in 3.0?

Re:Kernel?

[churchr]

Incorrect. We have mouse _port_ drivers. Notice that there are no "Serial mouse" drivers in the kernel. The mouse support in the kernel is just for facilitating I/O over the PS/2 port, or whatever other funky bus mouse technology your box has.

Re:Kernel?

[FreeMath]

I would think so.
Last time i checked the kernel and bash didn't have any icons...

Re:Kernel?

[QuMa]

Not necessarily, depends if it does the standard ps/2 interface thingy. At a minimum, all the info should be readable/writeable from /dev/mouse (or /dev/thingy) as a non-root user (if you have +rw). After all, somebody might want to use mouse textures in gpm. (yes, gpm runs as root, but that's not the point).

Alas, the Haptic Mouse

[fm6]

Thanks for a nice summary. If you hadn't documented the wingman's shortcomings for me, I would have eventually wasted my money on one.

I seem to recall that all of Logitech's force-feedback technology is licensed from SensAble (or maybe I'm confusing them with Haptic Technologies. When I got curious about "haptic" devices about a year ago, I remember seeing a version of the WingMan on the SensAble web site. They were pushing it purely as a GUI enhancement ("Feel when you mouse moves from one window to another!), but apparently weren't getting any takers. Only Logitech took them up, and for a long time, even Logitech considered it purely a "game device".

Nowadays, SensAble concentrates on 3D haptic devices, useful for design engineering, sculpture, etc. It occurs to me that this too would make a nice GUI pointer. Think of the idioms you could invent with a 3d pointer! But of course, the gadget is much too expensive for that market.

Which also explains the problem with the WingMan and iFeel. It isn't that physical feedback is a bad idea. It's just that they haven't figured out how to make a real feedback device that's cheap enough for the mass market.

__________

This kinda' stuff has been around a while

[modecx]

I remember VR gloves used to be available for a pretty good penny back in the hayday of the SGI Onyx. Each finger had a potentiometer and servo. Any object that could be manipulated in real time on the screen could be manipulated by simply 'picking it up' with the VR gloves.
Anyone have more info on these things?

Is has to be said

[veldrane]

Must be a late day at work for me but the next obvious use for this technology would be the pr0n industry. Anyone care to patent it while they have the chance?

-Vel

Re:Is has to be said

[Ralph Wiggam]

I don't know the movie, but it reminds me of this Dennis Miller rant:
"Scientists estimate that by the end of this century, via the means of Virtual Reality, a man will be able to simulate making love to any women he wants to through his television set. You know, folks, the day an unemployed ironworker can lay in his Bark-a-lounger with a Fosters in one hand and a channel flicker in the other and fuck Claudia Schiffer for $19.95, it's gonna make crack look like Sanka, all right?!"
His dates and his technology are a little off, but you know what he means.

-B

Re:Is has to be said

[Ralph Wiggam]

Can you really order a fufme unit? The web site looks so legit, but I can't imagine anyone really wanting to bone a drive bay (and I can imagine a lot). Are there people out there saying, "Phone sex is cool, and cybersex is pretty good, but I really wish I could hump my computer case while I do it"?

For those of you who havn't seen the fufme unit before, follow the link above and check out the CG image at the top of the FAQ page.

Basically, has anyone actually seen a real fufme drive or read any indication that it's a joke?

-B

Moderators: This article is as close to on-topic as you can get for this question and I've wanted to ask it for a while.

Hate to be the one to say it, but...

[FauxPasIII]

These aren't exactly new. They were featured as one of the 'Best Geek Christmas Gifts' on the ZDtv show 'The Screen Savers' for X-Mas 99. They've had them for sale at the local Microcentre for months.

Linux 2.6 (OT)

[rkent]

Can we see support in Linux 2.6, please?

Linux 2.6? Oh, be optimistic; say Linux 3.0

:)

Re:Linux 2.6 (OT)

[Lennie]

Why not in 2.4.5 ? ;)

Why stop with the kernel? :)

[DragonHawk]

Wouldn't this be more of a 'Forced Feedback Driver for X' thing than a kernel support in 2.6 thing?

I noticed that too. I couldn't help but think, "Yah, but what I really want is support in GCC!". ;-)

Redudant

[milkman1]

We have seen a story one this less than 2 months ago (though it is a little better than twice a day)

Logitech's "Mouse that Feels"

Re:I have the technology!

[ralphclark]

I don't know why they don't just remove the "Extrans" option since it hasn't worked for about a year now. Sigh.

Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction

Seen this Logitech back in Aug 21 /.

[ackthpt]

a repeat


--
Chief Frog Inspector

Re:Seen this Logitech back in Aug 21 /.

[garcia]

ahh of course...

I read before that people actually like this new technology. Honestly, I don't like tactile feedback. I like the keyboards that have soft touch and make no noise.. I guess hearing my Northgate keyboard click away for years and years turned me off to that shit...

- Bill

Re:Mouse for the blind?

[PurpleBob]

Don't forget Compose-;-e, if you've got X set up with a Compose key.
--
No more e-mail address game - see my user info. Time for revenge.

This technology won't be complete...

[PD]

until it can put textures onto pr0n.

Re:This technology won't be complete...

[PD]

That's what that guy in the Rocky Horror Picture Show sings too.

More info

[OO7david]

The Register has some more info about it from a while back.

recycle bin

[jafac]

not only is the article old (been on slashdot before, twice, I think), but the posts appear to be the same ones.

Re:First!

[nomadic]

Yeah, I know I wasn't actually first, so I deserve it. I'll go forth and sin no more.
--

I wonder

[Undocumented]

How long it will be before the the Internet Explorer install routine will put speed bumps around its icon and oil slicks around other browser icons making it easier for the end user to click on Exploder as oposed to say, netscape.

Hell you could even web enable the stuff and force people to slow down over your links.

Yes moderators this is meant to be sarcastic and funny.. not trolling!

PHANTOM devices at work

[greck]

The kids at UNC have been using PHANTOM force-feedback units for years now... here are a few links to some interesting projects:

• 6-DOF Haptic Rendering
• inTouch Modeling and 3D Painting
• the nanoManipulator (the coolest, although the site is partially down)

Mouse for the blind?

[DestinyBWL]

I wonder how this mouse would work for the blind? Or rather, I bet you could add some sound along with the feedback technology to make a great mouse for the blind. Could be tres cool.
Bradford L.

Re:Mouse for the blind?

[eudas]

if you're curious, é is alt-130.

eudas

Re:Mouse for the blind?

[Paradise_Pete]

or option-e e, for some readers.

Pete

I cant believe no one has thoughtof this yet

[cinchel]

unless its the comments for the story three weeks ago, but....what about uses for the blind or visually impaired. give each icon a certain feel so that they could find them easier would be great. or maybe even using it to help them figure out what a certian word is , kinda like brail in a way. in fact a better idea for the brail thing would be some kind of tablet that would translate,lets say a webpage, into brail so that the visually impaired could read the web too. or has this already happened and im in the the dark (wouldnt be the first time) cinchel :)

Bluescreen ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently this new kind of mouse has a motor in it that can simulate various textures as you move it across your screen, letting you "feel" icons and windows

I wonder what this mouse will do if windows crashes ? Jumping from your table and die in the trashcan ?

Re:A Little Late...

[ignorant_newbie]

>mindwire.org - Like /. but with less spelling
>errors, more interesting science stories, better,
>comments & no JonKa um... wouldn't that be 'fewer' ? i mean, if you're going to bitch about spelling...

Support in kernel 2.6?

[z84976]

I hope this doesn't come across as a troll or anything, but...

Wouldn't it be more in keeping with the open-source spirit to put that kind of support in the Here And Now kernel instead?!?!?!? Never put off until tomorrow what you can make a kernel module for today...

LogiTech already tried this years ago

[AntiFreeze]

LogiTech tried this forced-feedback effect years ago and it failed miserably. Remember in good ol' DOOM when during the mouse initialization you would get the message "M_Init: This device is not a cyberman?" [or something like that]. Well, I was one of the few suckers who invested in the CyberMan, thinking it was a rather cool idea and that there would be a lot of support for it in the future. Well, needless to say, I was probably one of the five people who owned one (not counting the few promotional ones probably tossed at iD). The only other piece of software which ever (to my knowledge) supported the CyberMan was Quest For Glory 4. I still think that the CyberMan held lots of potential, especially for CAD type programs and other things (specifically games) which needed the flexability of a mouse which could move around in three dimensions, but now I'm getting off topic. Either way, the CyberMan had forced feedback, and it was really quite cool, because different situations caused different effects. Being shot was a quick buzz, chewed on by a demon was longer and deeper and more annoying, and standing in that green slime made the thing go crazy - all in all, it really hightened that experience. Here's the catch: IT DIDN'T CATCH ON. It seemed great, and it still seems great, but there was no market for forced-feedback devices just a few short years ago. Now, the market has changed drastically since the DOOM days, but even the N64 Rumble Pack isn't used as widely as was hoped. So what do I think? It feels to me as if there will be a lot of hype over these forced-feedback devices. There will be critical acclaim and a few software packages which will support the hardware at first. After that initial rush, I highly doubt much will come from the hardware and there will be a bunch of people left with high-tech yet unsupported devices on their desks. Hey, I'm still hoping some new software will come out which I can use my CyberMan with. I'm just not holding my breath any more.

Re:LogiTech already tried this years ago

[Paradise_Pete]

Here's the catch: IT DIDN'T CATCH ON.

And it won't catch on until Apple incorporates it as standard equipment, like with USB.

Pete

Re:A Little Late...

[iElucidate]

1) you're talking about grammar. That is not spelling. I didn't say I have good grammar. :-) Actually I do, but on Slashdot I choose not to use it. But the problem is, with a 120 char sig it's hard to fit everything. every character counts...

this is really nothing new.....

[Da_Monk]

At the National Supercomputing Covention (1996? the one in pittsburgh), they had a demo virtual texture apparatus running off a giant SGI Onyx. also a 3D printer which did layers of paper cut into shapes to form the object....

not that this stuff is any less interesting, but still. not exactly new.

Can we see support in Linux 2.6?

[Bad_CRC]

is this really the kind of thing that needs to become part of the kernel?

That seems like a huge weakness in Linux if it's true.

________

match it with a worthy display

[Shotgun Willy]

They need to match up this force feedback stuff with this

This will be a good job...

[[egal]]

... for blind people. AFAIK blind computer users can't get the full advantage of GUI. But with this device (it its reliable) they may get a step closer to bring all those cool blind hackers on the net. WOW, I think the world is getting much more interesting :-) Imagen a mail like : "I literaly cracked your web server with bare hands...". No excuse for companies not hiering blind guys, because they may become a major threat to computer security, if they use all the "spare" time on cracking. YEAH, this guruntees my job for a few years more.

P.S. I don't intend to make fun of people not being able to see that well, in fact I'm quite up-set with my eys myself :-)
--

Drag and drop

[vslashg]

Drag and drop of files would be a bit of a pain with a force feedback mouse. Sure, everything will be fine until you start feeling macho and then try to drag a fifty megabyte file all by yourself. Then you sprain a muscle.

porn?

[adrox]

This could be the next step in internet porn. You drag your mouse over the picture and feel the curves.

I'm sure if they made this happen it would be reason enough for these mice to catch on ;)

Re:porn?

[radja]

Now the blind can enjoy internet porn too. this MUST be a good thing. Seriously though.. I think it may be useful for blind net-users.

//rdj

Re:A Little Late...

[Paradise_Pete]

But using "less" instead of "fewer" would save you a byte! Now, you have no excuses...

Perhaps you'd care to brush up on your reading comprehension, then try the thread again.

Pete

I have the technology!

[ralphclark]

Another device featured is the Phantom, a nifty creation of SensAble Technologies. It goes one step further, allowing you to trace a fingertip across the surface of a virtual object, feeling its contours, tracing edges and even allowing you to sculpt and deform what's on the screen."

<p>
I can do this already on my Linux machine. I sneezed all over the monitor screen a couple of weeks ago and the stuff has gone all hard now, so if I touch the screen I can certainly feel its contours. And if I pick hard enough I can indeed "sculpt and deform" it. In a sort of organic bas-relief effect.
<p>
It enhances air war-type games too. Imagine the scene: "Sir, I have a bogey on the screen at 12 o' clock".
<p>
I guess my wife is right, it's way past time I cleaned up in my den...

Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction

Re:I have the technology!

[iElucidate]

Perhaps your sneeze covered the "preview" button?

Yeah, tell me about it

[Anne Marie]

The last thing I need is an office of male coworkers asking me whether I need help dragging my files around.

Re:Yeah, tell me about it

[Anonymous Coward]

"The last thing I need is an office of male coworkers asking me whether I need help dragging my files around."

Hon, tell em you use your tongue for the big jobs cause its much stronger than your thumbs and fingers. Should give them plenty to think about. :)

Force feedback...

[Ron Harwood]

I have a FF joystick... and games that support it just take on a whole new dimmension...

I mean feeling the mech take its steps, or fire a weapon... wow...

Does it make me a better player? Far from it, it tends to throw off my aim... Do I enjoy the game more? Oh yeah... that's a new flavour of fun...

Now real-world applications are looking at this technology... interesting... I don't think I want a surgeon using his MS Sidewinder FF to transplant an organ or anything... but I'm sure there will be some good applications... (remote control bomb-defusing comes to mind...)

Opens up a whole new market for skins

[Preposterous Coward]

Hey, you thought putting a new skin on Winamp or Mozilla was cool, wait 'til you can put a new texture-skin on your OS.

"My personal favorite is the natural wood-grain-feel desktop, but my wife sure likes that soft smooth Corinthian Leather. Of course, my son is into that peanut-butter-and-jelly skin he downloaded from Nickelodeon.com -- I don't just know how he can stand that sticky feeling all day."

Quake mod

[Geccoman]

I can see a cool quake mod for doctors. A guy gets shot up real good by some LPBastards and some med students log in and try to patch him back up. If they do something wrong, he gibs all over them. That would be awesome!

haptics in the oil industry

[mojotoad]

I know one of the MIT patent holders in the SensAble Tech device.

It's impressive. It dials straight into the brain's ability to construct reality around tactile input. A great visual example would be when you are in one of the Omnimax type theater rides such as they use at Universal and Disney; simply by being surrounded by the visual experience, your brain invents the sensation of momentum and disorientation.

The pen device they use for SensAble Tech operates on a similar illustion, using tactile feedback to construct the illustion of texture.

At Shell, they use it to navigate 3D seismic volumes, and you can feel the relative densities (amongst many other variables) as you navigate the pointer device, which is a pen on an armature. (I have to say, upon examining the SensAble site, they go to great lengths to avoid any association with exoskeleton devices; this is true -- you simply hold their device like you would a pencil or pen, but it is nevertheless attached to an armature)

The feedback mechanism is impressive. If you hit granite, that sombitch don't move any further. The feedback includes "bounce", so they had to include logic for circumstances when the device somehow feels that it has suddenly appeared in the middle of a solid volume -- under which circumstances it would kick out to an "acceptable" state outside of the volume. Without the failsafe, you would not want to be holding the peripheral under those circumstances.

All in all, the illusion is suprisingly complete.

Mojotoad

Here's a force feedback device for you.

[atrowe]

The RoboSuck has been providing force feedback for years.

Still I wonder.

[guran]

Graphic UI shells and applications must become much better at detecting mouse events first, I'm afraid.
How good are todays programs at, say, switching mouse icon when they are supposed to? Not so good that I could rely on the icon to know wether I should click or not.

But let's be optimistic. In the best case, gadgets like these will force UI designers to follow standards more. Less of that "Oh, but surely everyone should realize that they are supposed to right-control-doubleclick *there*" attitude.

*sigh* wouldn't the simplest and possibly best solution to mouse feedback be active mouse buttons? gently pop up the buttons when the pointer is over something intresting. More useful and less annoying thatn a vibrator. And if you want to make a useful blind-aid combine with six pop up dots braille style for text scanning and buttons to lock mouse movement to vertical/horizonal only. (I cant draw a straight line with a mouse and *with* visual feedback.)

These devices

[bsletten]

Had the distinction of being some of the coolest technologies I saw at several SIGGRAPHs in a row!

Linux support for Phantom

[Yenya]

The Human-Computer Interaction laboratory team at our Faculty of Informatics develops Linux drivers for Phantom:

http://decibel.fi.muni.cz/phantom/.

-Yenya
--

Finally!

[soulsteal]

Now we (meaning !(Tommy Lee)) can all finally find out what Pamela Anderson Lee's breasts feel like!

A Little Late...

[iElucidate]

I've already seen this thing out in stores. At Fry's the Logitech mouse is about $59, IIRC. The SensAble system is something that we have seen at the university level for years. Perhaps it's about time that these things get on the desktop, but I really don't see a practical use for them until they get it to the point of Earth: Final Conflict, where you can have your entire interface be a touch system floating in the air. Okay, so I'm a bit optomistic...

It's sad that the only real use for this that I can think of is fabric purchasing (a miniscule market), or pr0n (a huge market). But for the latter, we need a much larger surface...

Re:A Little Late...

[iElucidate]

LOL. Luckily, /. updates your sigs in real time, so now the thread is irrelevant. How's that for confusing?

Re:A Little Late...

[Paradise_Pete]

I saw the thread after you changed your sig, but I worked it out :-)

BTW, I've now bookmarked your site. I like it.

Pete

Area of greatest potential.

[NetWurkGuy]

This could add a whole new dimension to on-line porn.

I am drooling already at the potential for this...

[cOdEgUru]

Let me jot down a couple of scenarios.... Dont moderate me..Learn to laugh at my perversion

Imagine going to Porn sites and tweaking the n*ppl*s of Jenna Jameson..(Edited for the sake of 11 yr old Cmdr Taco)

Imagine ... aaarghh..cant think of anything else.. I am a perverted geek. Oops. I just spoke on behalf of 90% of the geek community...

The next virus...

[ALG]

All it will take will be one poorly designed piece of hardware (never happens, right?) with sloppy, or non-imposed force-feedback limits. Imagine a gloove that works much like the above mentioned mouse. Imagine a 'hacker' creating a program which takes advantage of this poorly designed piece of hardware to, say, crush your hand. I don't want to even think about what could happen with certain 'erotic pleasure' devices. Yowza! =)

ALG

Forget pr0n

[lrichardson]

There's another application for which large numbers of users will be happy ... the visually impaired/blind. It's sad how few sites put useful tags/text on images _now_. I could get behind an image tag which is also in braille.

I saw this at E3, 1998

[SgtXaos]

Someone, (Immersion corp I think?) had a demonstration of this at E3 back in 1998. I got to play with a mouse that was tethered by an arm to the pad it was on. The tether apparently connected to encoders and some sort of actuators either in the mousepad header or the mouse (can't remember 'zactly now).

Anyway, they had it hooked to a PC with a stock windows desktop, and you could feel the window edges and control buttons, etc. as you dragged across them. It was definitely neat. They had some little demo program where you could drag across different textures and feel the "surface." They also had some lines that felt like rubber bands when you bumped the cursor into them.

If my memory serves, they had some games installed on it, and the device provided feedback similar to a joystick or steering wheel, though in a limited fashion.

I remember thinking at the time that it would be great for FPS games, since I like to play those with a mouse and keyboard; I always get fragged more when I try to use a joystick. I also imagined it might be cool for adventure type games where you could use texture as a clue, or for educational apps, like to feel what alligator skin was like without the risks inherent in petting a real one.

The downside of the unit I played with was its permanent attachment to the "mousepad" thingy, which took some getting used to if you were accustomed to a regular mouse. I suppose if your tastes were more toward tablets, the absolute pointing paradigm would not be quite so foreign. From the look of the picture in the article, they now have the actuators contained inside the mouse, so it should be cooler.

Texture, I've got plenty

[twitter]

All you have to do to texturize the average mouse is eat at your desk. Damn crums, they make all sorts of clicks and slips.

Re:Good for trolling

[ackthpt]

Or when they get b*tchslapped, they actually feel it!


--
Chief Frog Inspector

Demolition Man

[TekPolitik]

Wesley Snipes, Sylvester Stallone. Enough Said

Ergonomics of Force Feedback

[dbmartin00]

I actually ran research experiments with human subjects using a prototype of the force feedback mouse Logitech is releasing last summer at Harvard's School of Public Health.

It has long been established in the literature that certain types of user interface tasks are more easily accomplished than others-- its a lot easier to target something (click on a button), than it is to steer something (navigate the start menu or a scroll pane).

That difficulty changes, however, when the input metaphor changes. For example, a steering wheel is a great input device for moving a scroll pane. We'd probably use steering wheels instead of mice if the only thing we needed to do with a computer was use scroll panes on web pages. (hmm... maybe I should ditch the mouse)

The great thing about these new mice is that, when programmed well, doing everyday stuff with your computer will get much nicer. Ever get tired of just missing the corner of a window when you're trying to resize? How about continually hitting the wrong program or option by just one a deep set of menus. What about just clicking on a link in a web page?

BUT if programmed poorly, force feedback UIs could be a real pain in the ass. How awful would it be to have to click on a button that continually repelled your mouse cursor? One of the most interesting preliminary results we saw was that, regardless of how much less comfortable a person was, having force feedback turned on improved a user's performance for their tasks. Meaning that, even when you're fighting repelling fields to get to your target, you're faster for having some kind of tactile feedback that when you have none at all... in the worst scenario this could mean companies having little incentive to get the force feedback UI right for their workers-- productivity increases regardless, so who cares?

All this is, of course, ongoing research and you should take my info with a big grain of salt. Incidentally, SensAble's phantom is cool, but the real force feedback work is going on at Immersion (www.immersion.com)... They're putting force feedback devices in everything from car stereos to the just-unveiled-in-Paris BMW concept cars. And their technology is what's inside the Logitech mouse.

Cheers!

Yeah...

[Aash]

Oh yeah, this is a real good idea. Because God knows, I'm always overshooting those icons. And then I figure, "Well, I've already passed that icon, why bother going through the hassle of going all the way back to it?"

And links too. The fact that they're underlined and that my cursor turns into a pointing finger when I go over them isn't enough. And then, what if I overshoot that? Moving my hand a couple of millimeters is unacceptable.

So sign me up for one of those force-feedback mice right now!

"No more issues with too small print"

[Howie]

I saw this thing last week while looking to see if Logitech made a MS Strategic Commander clone (they didn't). Logitech claim on the iFeel pages that there are "No more issues with too small print or information clutter" - WTF? It's obviously not accurate enough vibrations that you can feel embossed type... what's that about?

Agreed.

[The Unknown Anorak]

I had a go at Logitech's demo at a trade show recently and underwhelmed is not the word. Not only does it do nothing but buzz - any description using the word 'texture' should be done under the trade descriptions act - but the vibrations are at a frequency that brings to mind a dental drill. Ouch.

I'm more worried about the ability to make a cursor gravitate to a particular point on screen you described with the Wingman - how long until someone teams that up with the no-click purchasing procedure from yesterday?

VBICTS

[Irish-Mook]

I can't wait for the first "Vibration Induced Carpal Tunnel" Lawsuits....

does this mean that..

[given_to_fly]

I'll be able to tell if a models boobs are real or fake now, just by finding em on the net? wow.. neato

umm

[geek]

this is like 2 month old news.......... way to keep on top of things