A Touchable Holographic display was on show over at Siggraph recently. As you will more than be aware, holography cannot really be touched. It’s just floating images that when you reach and grab them your hand slides right through them.
A company have been working on tactile feedback for holography and have created a system which uses 2 wii remotes to detect location of a real object (ie, your hand for example) and then an airborne ultrasound tactile display is used by giving feedback on the users hand.
The tactile display is located above a unit along with the wii remotes and when an animation of rain drops is played you literally feel speckles on your hand created by the tactile display. A ball can also be used as an example. Check out the video below to see it in action. Maybe a fully fledged holodeck is not that far from becoming reality.
Amazing… It’s only a first step in this tecnology but we can expect much more in the future….