Put forward recently, is the prototype for Facebook’s Haptic Glove For Virtual Reality. Although a wearable nightmare to look at with its seemingly ghostly look on the hands, it actually can reproduce sensations in the virtual world such as texture, vibration, and pressure.
Facebook’s Haptic Glove For Virtual Reality IN A GLANCE:
- Under construction by Meta’s Reality Labs
- Design containing soft motors called actuators
- Can be paired with VR headset for multiplayer games
- Contains features for advanced hand-tracking technology
One of the most innovative yet most challenging project being carried out by Reality Labs, is indeed the design and creation of this pair of haptic gloves. If successful, this will be a giant leap in the Augmented and Virtual Reality worlds!
Using this pair of gloves, the user can actually feel the surface of any object in the digital space. There are endless possibilities here as the user can also feel any vibrations, texture of the object, etc.
Meta plans to coordinate this pair of gloves with their upcoming headset and also their AR glasses as all the things can be used in complete compatibility. This will be really useful for online multiplayer games.
The prototype is shown with small plastic motors which are inflatable. These are called actuators and they are placed over the glove to provide sensation to the wearer’s hand including the fingertips. This is done with the assistance of microfluidics that controls the airflow that moves the actuators. Meta claims to be creating the world’s first high-speed microfluidic processor for this. Also, Meta claims that this project requires in-depth research and investigation in fields of sciences never been delved into before.
One of those is their work on advanced hand-tracking technology that will allow the haptic gloves to identify the position of your hand in any virtual scene.
Currently, Meta has no plans for a commercial sale of the item in the near future. They have introduced this prototype and are excited to be working on it. Especially because it involves work on an extremely new dimension of actually touching an object in the virtual world.
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