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Cybernetic System to Allow Physical Interaction
Ant writes "Wired News reports researchers have developed a cybernetic system to allow physical interaction over the Internet. The system allows touching and feeling of animals or other humans in real time, but it's first being tried out on -- chickens. The Touchy Internet Built was by a wacky group of researchers at the Mixed Reality Lab at the National University of Singapore (NUS)."
When showcased at the Version 05 arts festival in Chicago, viewers suggested using the system for internet sex. Experts dismiss the whole idea as silly.
"Current haptic displays typically allow a user to interact with a virtual or remote environment through a tool," says Allison M. Okamura, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Johns Hopkins University. "Hence, the systems feel like you are poking at the world through a stick. A major challenge is providing the user with more delicate tactile sensations, such as feeling that occurs when one draws her finger over a rough or smooth surface. This kind of realism is difficult to achieve."
Some doctors are already using robots remotely to diagnose patients... In Alaskan remote communities, something like this can eventually provide remote robotic surgery with sensory feedback...
...'new'?
There have been 2-way haptic feedback systems since the early 90's (and probably before that but I am not personally aware of them.)
I personally used a 20+ sensor cyberglove on an SGI IR that was networked to another modified cyberglove in order to transmit tactile response both to and from the target (in this case a rubber ball.) That was in 1997.
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This means that eventually, I'll be able to watch two people from the internet actually fight! Though, you have to wonder, is the technology STRONG enough for that kind of tactile feedback?
Rock'em Sock'em Robots Online, anyone? Betcha I can make your head pop first!
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
It would only take them a minute or so of "feeling" before they determined I'm not attractively shaped. Mental image kicks in, modem kicks off.
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Oh the golden days of the 'net are brought to fruition!
http://opendildonics.org/
-Ben
[...] Experts dismiss the whole idea as silly. [...]
I wonder what sort of experts these are ... pr0n experts? technology experts? WTF?
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No, I haven't RTFA.
I disagree. In another 10 or 15 years your going to be looking back on todays technology like we do NES. The reason it failed was because the technology *wasn't* there. The closest visually are still basic low-poly models relying heavily on texture mapping to provide the appearance of detail that just isn't there.
When you start treading VR waters I think you realize how quickly todays technology fails to fit the bill. Novel? Sure. Maybe even fun. But no-one is going to mistake a sweaty vinyl glove and some hot, neck wrenching, low-res goggle for "virtual reality".
Reality contains a lot more physical feed-back then we are currently capable of reproducing. Thats why VR has remained a tech-show novelty and not become the booming industry you'd like to see (and your not alone).
Quack, quack.
The idea is not new, and there is even an open source application (and as an open source developer, let me say: it's about time that we can touch each other without proprietary protocols).