{"id":78160,"date":"2018-05-01T07:42:43","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T14:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/disneys-haptic-vr-jacket-lets-you-feel-snowball-impacts-and-snakes-slithering"},"modified":"2018-05-04T11:11:38","modified_gmt":"2018-05-04T18:11:38","slug":"disneys-haptic-vr-jacket-lets-you-feel-snowball-impacts-and-snakes-slithering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/05\/disneys-haptic-vr-jacket-lets-you-feel-snowball-impacts-and-snakes-slithering","title":{"rendered":"Disney\u2019s haptic VR jacket lets you feel snowball impacts and snakes slithering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/disneys-haptic-vr-jacket-lets-you-feel-snowball-impacts-and-snakes-slithering.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Virtual reality is a gateway to powerful experiences. Strap on a pair of VR goggles, look around, and the scene you see will adjust, in real time, to match your gaze. But the technology is a visual one. Virtual reality doesn\u2019t include touch, although there are controllers that provide \u201chand presence,\u201d allowing you to manipulate objects in the virtual world, or shoot a simulated gun. So while VR today could simulate a <em>Westworld <\/em>-like setting, you\u2019re not going to be actually feeling the hug of a cowboy-robot on your body while using any of the major platforms\u2014at least not for a while.<\/p>\n<p>The Force Jacket, a garment from Disney Research, aims to address that gap. Made out of a converted life jacket, the prototype uses embedded airbags that inflate, deflate, or even vibrate to literally give its wearer a feeling of being touched. When coupled with VR software, the setup can simulate something bizarre\u2014a snake slithering on you\u2014or more pedestrian: getting hit by a snowball. In brief, the sensation of touch you feel on your actual body can match what you see in a virtual one. (The device is the result of a research project, so these lifejacket-garments aren\u2019t exactly on sale on Amazon. It\u2019s also not the first research to focus on incorporating haptics into VR.) <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019ve experienced virtual reality or augmented reality, it\u2019s largely based in this immersive visual world,\u201d says Alexandra Delazio, the lead researcher on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.disneyresearch.com\/publication\/force-jacket\/\">jacket project<\/a> and currently a research engineer at the University of Pittsburgh, where she works on technology for people with disabilities. \u201cThe real world is not just visual\u2014it\u2019s full of force and pressure-based interaction.\u201d The goal of the jacket is to bring that sense of touch to the virtual world, or maybe even offer a way for someone far away to give you a hug.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/force-jacket-virtual-reality?con=TrueAnthem&dom=fb&lnk=TA&src=SOC&utm_campaign=&utm_content=5ae752a604d3016624cc5461&utm_medium=&utm_source=\">https:\/\/www.popsci.com\/force-jacket-virtual-reality?con=True...tm_source=<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Virtual reality is a gateway to powerful experiences. Strap on a pair of VR goggles, look around, and the scene you see will adjust, in real time, to match your gaze. But the technology is a visual one. Virtual reality doesn\u2019t include touch, although there are controllers that provide \u201chand presence,\u201d allowing you to manipulate [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":413,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1498,6,1879],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-augmented-reality","category-robotics-ai","category-virtual-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/413"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78325,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78160\/revisions\/78325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}