Did you know that those few places on your body where you cannot grow hair are by far the most sensitive? Like the bottoms of your feet?
Suppose you wanted to know what something thousands of miles away felt like --
as easily as you could see what it looks like by aiming a remote Internet
camera. What happens if that smart probe transmits the sensation to all those
dense nerve receptors along your tingly arch?
"The world is going digital, but people are analog,"
We like real things. We touch real things all day long
Haptics," as it is called, refers to the ability of people to sense the world
around us through touch.
How do you teach a computer to tell your brain all that?
the business of figuring out exactly how humans tick
Immersion employs people called "haptic artists" who build touch effects. "It's
just like composing music or painting a picture. It's the creation of feeling,"
That's how we sense the presence of an other
clipped from: www.washingtonpost.com 