Japan firm showcases 'touchable' 3D technology
Technology that generates touchable 3D
imagery was unveiled in Japan Monday, with its developers saying users could
pull and push objects that are not really there.
Know-how that could improve a gaming
experience, or allow someone to physically shape objects that exist only on a
computer, will soon be available to buy, said Miraisens, a high-tech firm based
outside Tokyo.
Japan's high-tech venture Miraisens CEO Natsuo
Koda demonstrates the new device using 3D-haptics technology
"Touching is an important part of
human communication but virtual reality has until now been lacking it,"
its chief executive Natsuo Koda told a press conference.
"This technology will give you a
sense that you can touch objects in the 3D world," said Koda, a former
Sony researcher on virtual reality.
It works by fooling the brain,
blending the images the eye is seeing with different patterns of vibration
created by a small device on the fingertip, said Norio Nakamura, the inventor
of "3D-Haptics Technology" and chief technical officer at the firm.
In one demonstration of a prototype
head-mounted display, the company showed how the user can feel resistance from
virtual buttons that he or she is pushing.
Miraisens is a spin-off of the
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology based in the
city of Tsukuba east of Tokyo.
Billing the technology as a world
first, the company says it wants to commercialise it through applications in
electronics and the services industry.
The system can be built into devices
in the shape of coins, sticks or pens, amongst others.
Company officials said they could
foresee a number of ways of using the technology.
For example, if built into a game
controller, it could be used to give a sense of resistance in response to
certain actions within the game, they said.
It could also be used to make up
complicated data that could be fed into a 3D printer, allowing a child to make a
virtual dinosaur model and then watch it come into existence.
Other applications could include help
for doctors carrying out surgery remotely, or navigation assistance in canes
used by visually impaired people. (Yahoo Philippines)
Google smart contact lenses move closer to reality
Google smart contact lenses move closer to reality
Google's
Smart Contact Lens is like your contact lens, except it's a whole lot smarter.
Google’s plan to bring smart contact
lenses to diabetes sufferers inched closer to reality as the company
secured two patents last week for the cutting edge, biometric sensor
technology.
Known among scientists as “Ophthalmic
Electrochemical Sensors,” these contact lenses will feature flexible
electronics that include sensors and an antenna. The sensors are designed to
read chemicals in the tear fluid of the wearer’s eye and alert her, possibly
through a little embedded LED light, when her blood sugar falls to dangerous
levels.
According
to the patent:
“Human
tear fluid contains a variety of inorganic electrolytes (e.g., Ca.sup.2+, Mg.sup.2+,
Cl.sup.-), organic solutes (e.g., glucose, lactate, etc.), proteins, and
lipids. A contact lens with one or more sensors that can measure one or more of
these components provides a convenient, non-invasive platform to diagnose or
monitor health related problems. An example is a glucose sensing contact lens
that can potentially be used for diabetic patients to monitor and control their
blood glucose level.
Google’s project is one of a
number of in-eye wearable sensor technologies currently under development
at universities and research facilities around the country. However, with two
patents in hand Google’s project may have a leg up on the competition.
This
side view of the smart lens show the polymeric material and the embedded
substrate.
The patents also offer a rare
opportunity to see how Google and its research partners envision the Smart
Contact lens fitting on the human eye.
For example, Google intends to both
communicate and power the electronics-embedded contact lens with a pair of
antennas, though the patent notes that these two functions could be embedded
within one antenna.
As for how the eye can see past the
thinner-than-a-strand-of-hair electronics, the patent notes that the substrate
is too close to the eye to be in focus and it’s positioned away from the center
of the eye and, thereby, away from where light is transmitted to the retina. It
also notes that the substrate can be made of transparent (read: “see-through”)
materials.
Google still has to get FDA approval
before anyone starts wearing smart contact lenses. Still, it’s clear that
glucose level detection is merely scratching the surface of the potential for
these lenses. If Google can effectively build free-standing,
communication-ready electronics in a transparent device roughly the size of a
standard contact lens, there’s no telling what other kinds of smarts the lens
will eventually be able to support.
Could Google Glass Contact
Lenses be far behind? (Source: Mashable.com)
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