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Surfing the Web Haptically
Chakat sent us a story about Haptic feedback, a buzzword ready technology where the mouse provides tactile feedback in addition to letting you click on your porn. Seriously I would love a bit of feedback when my mouse moves over a button or a link: Sorta like how modern window managers can snap borders to edges of other windows or the screen when moving or resizing... I think that a similar tactile thing for buttons would ease mouse navigation. Or else I can just continue binding ridiculous things like Ctrl-Alt-Shift-Meta-F8 to every little action.
Those X-10 bastards would have a field day with this.
Seriously I would love a bit of feedback when my mouse moves over a button or a link: Sorta like how modern window managers can snap borders to edges of other windows or the screen when moving or resizing...
But imagine the virtual "gravity well" sucking your mouse into the ad banners.
Brings a whole new meaning to "real time black hole".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
For the 2nd time today.. this HAS been going on for a while. You can make your Windows desktop and website touchy feely using the logitech i-feel mouse. I have one and it actually works okay.
Just improve it a bit and you got it...
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
So far today there have been articles on tactile mouse feedback, replicators, and browser spyware that records mouse movements. Of course, we already know that the porn industry will be the first to utilize these things to full effect, but can you imagine what it would be like to use all three? Imagine images the react to your mouse movement and give you tactile feedback, all while replicating on your desk!
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
"On Wednesday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates showed off a handheld computer that understands which way is up and where it's being touched."
His wife was, reportedly, fuming on the sidelines of the press conferance. Apparently, she was mumbling something about the invention resulting in her role being usurped in the couple's sex life.
"Old man yells at systemd"
You can make your Windows desktop and website touchy feely using the logitech i-feel mouse. I have one and it actually works okay.
Got one myself, but there's a drawback: no matter what settings I put it on, it makes my wrists hurt within minutes. I've got the onset symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome, and it's really getting better, but I had to turn off the iFeel feedback. Weird.
What's your damage, Heather?
I stumbled apon what I now know is a simulation of Haptic feedback several times in the past. To enable this simulation, simply eat corn/potato chips in the general vicinity of your mousepad.
Of course, the bumps don't really correspond to whats on the screen, but every once in a while, damned if it doesn't seem that way!
m00.
UNC has been using haptic interfaces, in conjunction with VR technology, to allow [bio]chemists the ability to 'assemble' new compounds at the atomic level. The researchers have grappling arms attached to their hands. The atomic repulsion/attraction is felt by the user, and can be used to figure out how the atoms / molecules should join together.
I think...I think it's in my basement. Let me go upstairs and check. -M.C. Escher (1898-1972)
In David Brin's "Sundiver" they administered a test, where they studied a person's eyeball movements as they were shown a picture. The objects of focus, lingering time, and relative timing of noticing those objects in the first second or two were construed to have deep psychological meaning. The test results were used to determine who was a rightful member of society, and who bore 'watching'.
Obviously haptics is less sophisticated than eyeball tracking, but perhaps not really. Eyeball tracking is straightforward once you have the sensor. Inferring the same type of information from mouse movements seems in some ways more sophisticated to me.
So put on your Gibsonian hats for a moment, and imagine an Echelon/Carnivore-type backdoor *required* in haptic feedback systems. Then have data-mining of that information looking for criminal or terrorist tendancies. Unlikely? Yep. But compared to Strategic Missile Defense?
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
15 years ago, when the Atari 2600 ruled the roost and Ms. Pacman came out for it (what a great game given the console's limitations), my mother (who was very good at it) claimed that the game would sometimes physically drag her down tunnels to her demise. She *swore* she could feel the joystick tugging in the wrong direction, despite her best efforts to go elsewhere. Having opened the joysticks several times, I tried my best to convince her that this was *not* possible, but she refused to believe me. So my mother would really rather not have anything to do with any *more* haptic input, thank you very much.
This would probably be great for reading braille webpages. Otherwise, it sounds annoying.
Well.. maybe if the blind still used braille. It's a myth... They don't... they use books on tape and such these days, it's hardly taught anymore. Braille books are huge and cause portability and storage problems.
It would, however, be a way for the blind to find items on the screen, but it does not and can not match text-to-speech for accessability.
"Yes.. no matter what the culture, folk dancing is stupid." -MST3K
That being said, it is really sad to think that there have been few really innovative and memorable improvements to the human-computer interface since the original Macintosh in 1984. (Yes I know Messr. Jobs got it from Xerox - cool your jets flamers. The Mac was the first widely available GUI system. Facts are facts.)
Not only is it time to start thinking more seriously about using the 4 other senses besides sight to enhance the human-computer interface (no pr0n jokes, please - I'm serious) but it is also high time to realize that not everyone has the use of their eyes. This type of interface improvement can do wonders for the visually impaired computer users among us. I'd like to see more improvements of this type.
Laws affecting technology will always be bad until enough techies become lawyers.
Perhaps the tech could be developed to feel braille with a mouse.
This is actually a great idea. How about a mouse with a dot-matrix like Braille pad, say, right between the buttons, that produces the Braille character that matches the character under the pointer. Don't forget your patents!
I like to play children's songs in minor keys.
"We're all sons of bitches now." --J. Robert Oppenheimer
is what you'll most likely do should you come accross the only piece of equipment in existence today that actually uses this technology: the force feedback mouse. If you haven't tried it: it vibrates if you place the mousepointer on something that can be clicked. If you run into the edge of a window, it, well, also vibrates.
hardly the most exciting "user experience".
somehow, I don't see them get from "vibrate" to "within 10 years, shoppers will be able to "feel" a piece of silk or other fabric simply by rubbing their finger over a computer screen" (article). if we're supposed to be able to mimic "the feel of silk" in ten years, right now we should've been able to "feel the shape of a woman's tits", i should think. and i'm pretty sure the porn industry would've picked up on this if it were possible.
i wouldn't expect this technology to come into existence within the next ten years if i were you. nor twenty or thirty.
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
Ok, the corporation is not run by the church. It is however run by influential church members (plural, it's not just Mr. Marriot), who are generally fundamentalist and extremely conservative. This is of course, mitigated by the fact that Marriot is a publicly traded corporation accountable to shareholders. This mitigating factor probably has alot to do with why you can rent pay-per-view porn in their hotel rooms.
My whole point was that it is possible to divorce oneself of hangups about porn when there is $$ involved. Especially when you're company is in the red. Why not explore all possible markets for your technology?
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
Well taco, the Logitech iFeel mouse has been out for several months and is already able to do that. I have one. It is usb-only (which is a pain to set up sometimes even with the latest kernel) and there are no drivers for linux that allow it to use the vibration, though. With the windows drivers, it vibrates whenever you move it over a link in IE, but it is not that helpful, because it doesn't keep vibrating. You feel the same then whether you move it past the link or not. Not very helpful. And it only works in Internet Explorer, not Netscape or Opera (which is by far the best-engineered browser of them all). All in all the mouse is neat but the tactile feedback is not useful. So, in my opinion, this "feedback" techonology is not the next big thing, and will be almost unheard of in a few years except in specialized tasks.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
hubbabubba
I yam a proud and happy
Fried ice cream is a reality. - George Clinton
One word: Prozac.
Explanation: Do you know what a car looks like when it's stored in thousands of little ziplock baggies? Every nut, bolt, screw, and washer labelled as to where it came from?
I bought so many Ziplock baggies from my local warehouse-style super-saver grocery store that they had the cops meet me outside. They thought I was a big-time drug trafficker. When I invited them to my house to show they my car, they couldn't stop laughing and shaking their heads.
That was when I got help.
OTOH, it's very easy to find a water pump pulley bolt as I reassemble the engine.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.