Introduction
Ultrahaptics is the name that a team in Bristol University is calling their touchless feedback system. Haptics is the term used to describe tactile feedback like a vibrating joystick or a force feedback joystick. In the case of ultrahaptics, the feedback is via focussing audio waves to a point. From what I understood, they do this by focusing sound waves using a phased transducer array.This makes it really cool because now you get feedback without having to touch something.
Applications of Ultrahaptics
I can think of several applications for this kind of technology, the first of which is definitely console games. Imagine hooking this up with Kinect! So, here's my list of places where I would like to see this.- Mashup with Kinect.
- Digital Signs and Kiosks. Right now the only way is to the touch the screen.
- Phones and Tablets. I'm not fully sure of this one, but maybe.
Linux Device Drivers for Ultrahaptics
I don't know if there are any Linux drivers written for this. From the video, it looks like the ultrahaptics array is hooked up to a Mac. If this makes the mainstream, then definitely someone will sit down and write drivers for it. There are several things they will need to take care of There are USB Joystick drivers today and they provide both control and feedback. This would be something similar. However, the userspace will also need to keep up. evdev would need to provide event notification for applications and they will need to use some ioctl to control the 'feel' of the 'screen'. All in all very interesting.
