“OOOF!” Using your mouse, you heave a data file across the screen—a
couple of gigabytes of data weighs 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.
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.
A more serious set of applications is supported by the FEELit computer mouse,
designed by the Immersion Corporation of San Jose, California, which will go on sale in September
(Â鶹´«Ã½, 10 July 1999, p 10). You grasp it in
your hand like a conventional mouse, but electric motors provide resistance as
the cursor hits a hard barrier such as the edge of a window on the screen. The
mouse might be used by online shoppers to twang the strings of a tennis racket
or test drive a car.
In time, haptic interfaces may allow us to manipulate single molecules, feel
clouds and galaxies, even reach into higher dimensions to grasp…
