Disney Creates New Mid-Air Haptic Technology

An anonymous reader sends word of a new technology from Disney called AIREAL, featured at this year's SIGGRAPH 2013 conference in Anaheim, CA. It's designed to give tactile sensations to people who are using motion control devices. The device can track a target, like a user's hand, and send a compressed ring of air quickly through the intervening space to provide haptic feedback. They say the device is both inexpensive and scalable. Several of its parts are easily 3-D printed.