Apple really likes to tout the iPod Touch (and, by extension, the iPhone and iPad) as a gaming platform. In response, serious gamers like myself tend to laugh and point, largely due to the iPod’s lack of tactile feedback. ‘Button’ controlled iPod games are consistently a joke, and you can’t be a leading gaming platform on tilt-based games alone.
But maybe there’s hope! Toshiba has gone and turned this whole tactile feedback problem on its ear by developing a technology that sounds like it fell right out of a William Gibson novel.
‘Senseg E-Sense’ works by making weak electric field changes to a special film as your finger contacts a touchpad or screen. Is there an adorable kitten on the screen? Pet it, and you’ll feel its kitteny softness. Playing your favourite carpentry simulator? Feel that wood, man. Feel it.
Speaking of wood, though, I think I speak for many techies, especially would-be touchscreen gamers, when I say this is flipping AWESOME. The future, she’s here! Okay, well, not yet, but Toshiba expects this technology to start mainstream circulation by 2011. First stop? Our phones. Apple may be a gaming contender yet.
Hey, Toshiba, what happens if I inadvertently leave my screen set to ‘porcupine’, and get a call?
[Via Tech-On!]
> Playing your favourite carpentry simulator? Feel that wood, man. Feel it.
Haha love your writing.
ObTopic : the prurient side of me is having ideas about applications of this technology.