Seeing is believing for some VR users, but to truly top off the virtual reality experience one needs to be able to touch imaginary worlds, which the Dexmo exosuit lets users do. Made by Dexta Robotics, this exoskeleton provides tactile feedback in response to what users are seeing and interacting with in virtual environments.

The system also enhances usability, its fingertip-level force working in both directions – users can feel feedback but the game or other environment can also respond more minutely and accurately to user inputs, completing the experience.

The trick behind the tech is to couple fast-acting sensors and a light-touch frame that provides flexibility but also translates inputs precisely. Bonus: the whole system is wireless. For now, the critical limitations are in the software, which is being worked on by the team prior to public market release.

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A touching substitute for physical contact in the digital age, this ring is designed for remote relationships, letting you feel your lover’s pulse wirelessly (and them to feel yours).

The Touch ring links to your wireless device and taps into the internet to share your pulse with a paired device on a partner’s finger. The ring glows and the jewelry is made of stainless steel or solid rose gold and a crystal sapphire surface that prevents scratching. All in all, as wearables go, it looks quite elegant, and can feature an inscription, too.

While it may not replace FaceTime, Skype or personal contact over the long haul, it does provide a hand-holding reminder of your loved one when you are forced to spend time apart. “After long waiting, for those who wonder how HB Ring in Rose Gold and Jet Black looks on hand. The red lighting stripe shows the real-time heartbeat of your loved one directly on your ring. Pre-orders of limited series coming soon…” It may never be a perfect replacement to IRL snuggles, but it sure is a neat new way to keep in touch.

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Using ultrasonic arrays to create pressure on users’ hands, this new approach to telehaptic holography allows people to touch and feel at a distance, sharing an enhanced holographic experience way beyond virtual reality.

Aerial imaging panels in the “Haptoclone” system create the visual portion of the shared illusion, which can be experienced simultaneously by different users around the world.

A Kinect sensor translates motions by both users in realtime responses, moving holographic objects in shared three-dimensional spaces and emitting pressure accordingly.

“It would be great to allow people in different locations to communicate with one another while experiencing a sense of touch. We could, for example, put a transparent glass here and divide the room,” explained researcher Yasutoshi Makino. “Imagine if you were in a zoo, and there was a lion on the other side of the glass that you could have the sensation of touching.”

For now, there remain significant limitations, particularly when it comes to the ultrasonic pressures applied – there are safety limits keeping those sensations from being as complete as they might be in reality. So while you can toss a ball back and forth, bear hugs may be a ways off yet.

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Virtual reality’s promise of an immersive environment is impressive, but generally incomplete without something like this newly-developed system to let users actually feel the effects of interacting in digitally-created cyberspaces through actual muscle stimulation, a big step beyond low-tech vibrations.

Simulating physical impact, as demonstrated above, combines tactile and muscle stimulation via a device called Impacto. The accessory is worn on arms, legs, hands or feet and tied into the virtual reality experience with specialized software, allowing people to touch and feel objects. Well on its way to being fully wireless (for now it is at least not cord-connected to an external device), it lets users move around in real (and virtual) space without feeling uncumbered or worrying about tripping over cords.

Examples include: feeling the impacts of soccer balls bounced on legs or of punches blocked in a boxing game. “Of note, Impacto isn’t a simple vibrate motor shoved into a plastic box. The device combines a haptic vibration engine with electrical muscle stimulation to actually create a sensation of pushing or pulling, therefore more closely mimicking the feeling of contact from actual physical objects.”

“The key idea that allows the small and light impacto device to simulate a strong hit is that it decomposes the stimulus: it renders the tactile aspect of being hit by tapping the skin using a solenoid; it adds impact to the hit by thrusting the user’s arm backwards using electrical muscle stimulation,” the team, led by Pedro Lopes, said in an abstract covering its research paper on Impacto.

The next step: creating additional add-ons for torsos and other areas of bodies, all toward the eventual goal of a full-body suit for maximum effect. Applications go beyond entertainment and gaming as well – eventually systems like this could allow for remote scientific or medical procedures with haptic feedback for delicate situations.

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Real-life holodecks are now one big step closer to reality, thanks to a Japanese laboratory that has successfully produced interactive lasers you can touch and feel in midair.

The femtosecond laser from Digital Nature Group has been used before in aerial plasma 3D graphics demonstrations but has now been rendered safe for high-resolution and interactive uses.

The reduced duration of laser bursts helps make the system safe for human contact. Per the demonstration video, these holograms (made of little points of light called voxels) ionize the air around them and can be made to recreate 3D representations out of a series of overlapping 2D imagery.

The idea of haptic holograms is not new, dating back to Star Trek and other science-fictional applications, but now that safety issues have started to be solved those futuristic-sounding uses are now quite literally within reach.

The company behind this innovation is looking into creating interactive holographic interfaces, again something we have seen in future-set films but that could quite possibly soon be a reality.

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