Touching friends, lovers and the dead with virtual reality
The area beneath the hotel is low-ceilinged, the air heavy with the smell of cheap coffee. After a struggle past the other conference attendees, past stalls and screens, I find myself standing in front of a mannequin, decked in a leather outfit, blindfolded by a virtual-reality headset. A sign reads: “Teslasuit. Experience Real Life”.
Fitted with 46 haptic sensors, 14 motion-capture sensors, and an onboard climate-control system, the
Teslasuit is designed to be an all-body virtual-reality ensemble. Built with black rubber plates, it looks like something that sells with a ball gag. At the VRX Europe expo, attendees gather around it, eyelids akimbo.
The makers of the haptic suit claim, somewhat like a character in a Philip K Dick novel, that it will let you “enjoy incredible real world sensations as never before”. If there is a warm rain in your virtual world, for example, or a cold wind, the suit can apparently adjust its temperature (between 10 and 40°C). If an object hits you, the suit’s haptic points will mimic the impact. If someone touches you, the suit is supposed to stimulate your corresponding muscle groups.
“This device is one of the connecting links between digital media and the human body,” Denis Dybsky, marketing director for Teslasuit, later tells me. He explains that the suit was developed with “hardcore gamers” in mind, as the next logical step from virtual-reality headsets; where digital worlds aren’t just experienced, but inhabited. Is this something people want? Personally, no. It sounds like a nightmare. But Dybsky explains that Teslasuit’s aims extend far beyond gaming, into a world where social networks have fully embraced virtual reality.
“People will be more inclined to apply VR devices within social networks if interaction is close to the level of the real world,” he says. “Handshakes, hugs, the ability to touch objects, to feel their shape and mass, are the necessary attributes of interaction in virtual worlds. Almost all of this is impossible without a tactile component.”
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