Word: virtually
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...some fancy (and still fairly bulky) equipment like the Phantom, produced by SensAble Technologies Inc. of Woburn, Massachusetts. A stylus attached to the desktop device transmits force feedback to the user's fingertips. Following a model on your computer screen, you run the stylus over the "body" of the virtual teapot in the air and feel its curved, slick exterior. Move upward and you sense the contour...
Then there's CyberGrasp. Slip onto your hand what its makers, Virtual Technologies Inc. of Palo Alto, California, call a "lightweight unencumbering force-reflecting exoskeleton." I'd suggest it's more like a "twitching, cumbersome bionic-man device," but, then, p.r. isn't really my thing. That said, I like what it lets me do. On a computer screen a 3-D image of a ball appears as well as a representation of my hand, which I control by moving the big, spiderlike exoskeleton I'm wearing. As I manipulate the ball, the fingertips of the CyberGrasp sense the force...
There are serious applications, too, like virtual-reality job training, computer-aided design and remote handling of hazardous materials. And, of course, fooling around with great works of art. "The golden rule is, Don't touch," says Margaret McLaughlin, the principal investigator for the haptics project at USC's Integrated Media Systems Center. "We're trying to change that...
Researchers from India to Massachusetts are exploring digital smell technology, add-ons that make your computer into a perfume factory. But the current atmosphere for virtual scents pretty much, well, smells. Greg Gretsch, a Silicon Valley veteran at blue-chip venture capital firm Sigma Partners, says, "Someone talks about digital scent technology and my bulls___ meter goes...
...scent in short, focused spurts. Though a spokesman announced the company's demise last month, DigiScents continues to pin its hopes on the video-game market. Co-founder and chief executive officer Joel Bellenson predicts that a year from now players firing off a round of ammunition in a virtual shoot-out will be immersed in the smell of gunpowder thanks to the $200 attachment...