[A] Extensive applications of haptic technology.
[B] Possibilities rendered by haptic mechanisms.
[C] The feasibility of extending our senses and exploring abstract universes.
[D] An example of the progress in science of haptics.
[E] Bringing the potential of our senses into full play.
[F] Will haptics step into a bright future?
"OOOF!" Using your mouse, you heave a data file across the screen--a couple of gigabytes of data weigh a lot. Its rough surface tells you that it is a graphics file. Having tipped this huge pile of data into a hopper that sends it to the right program, you examine a screen image of the forest trail you'll be hiking on your Vacation. Then, using a gloved hand, you master its details by running your fingers over its forks and bends, its sharp rises and falls. Later you send an E-mail to your beloved, bending to the deskpad to attach a kiss.
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The science of haptics (from the Greek haptesthai, "to touch") is making these fantasies real. A few primitive devices are extending human-machine communication beyond vision and sound. Haptic joysticks and steering wheels for computer games are already giving happy players some of the sensations of piloting a spaceship, driving a racing car or firing weapons. In time, haptic interfaces may allow us to manipulate single molecules, feel clouds and galaxies, even reach into higher dimensions to grasp the subtle structures of mathematics.
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Most of our senses are passive. In hearing and vision, for example, the sound or light is simply received and analyzed. But touch is different: we actively explore and alter reality with our hands, so the same action that gathers information can also change the world--to model a piece of clay or press a button, for example. In providing direct contact between people, touch carries emotional impact. And in providing direct contact with the world, it is the sure sign of reality, as in "pinch me--am I dreaming?"
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Some small steps have even been taken towards whole-body haptics. Touch Technology of Nova Scotia, Canada, has built a haptic chair. It looks like a full length lounge chair in a family den, but its surface is studded with 72 "tactors" -pneumatic piston rods, covered with rounded buttons, that can extend about an inch, and can be driven under computer control in any desired sequence and pattern. It could be programmed to imitate a real massage or to function in time to music. According to the manufacturer, that provides a powerful blending of sen-sations--a long term goal of virtual reality.
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Even at its present crude level, however, haptics can make tangible what once could not be touched or even pictured. To investigate the world of the very small, researchers at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, have developed the nanoManipulator. This adds touch to the technique of scanning probe microscopy, which can image a single atom by monitoring either the electrical current flowing between an extremely fine probe and a surface or the force between them. With the nanoManipulator, researchers can see and manipulate a universe a million times smaller than their own, to study viruses and tiny semiconducting devices. If the force feedback can be made sensitive enough, it may be possible to push molecular keys into specific molecular locks, to custom-design drugs or assemble silicon parts into intricate nanomachines. With other interfaces, there is no reason we shouldn't also be able to touch the very large-clouds, ocean currents, mantle flows, mountains, galaxy clusters. Or the very strong--with a suitable force scaling, new ceramics or alloys could be squeezed and twanged to test their engineering properties. Or the physically extreme and inaccessible--such as ultra hot plasma flows in fusion machines.
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Haptic technology could even make abstract ideas tangible. Many scientific concepts occupy spaces of more than three dimensions: string theory, for example, asserts that we live in a 10 or 11-dimensional Universe. As it is impossible to visualise such a space, we explore these ideas through mathematical expressions or two dimensional sketches on paper, But probing these unfamiliar geometries with touch may be more effective. And for blind people, haptics offers a new way to grasp information even in three dimensions. A group at the University of Delaware has developed an environment where a person can feel a mathematical function. Using a PHAN-TOM, the user "walks" along the surface of the figure. Like a hiker following mountainous terrain, the user feels where the function is steep, where it is level, and where its peaks and valleys lie. Other haptic systems could help blind people to browse the Internet, feeling images as well as words.
The future of haptics is bright, but the only sensual relationship it will be sustaining any time soon is between you and your computer.