Touching the Virtual

Check out this ACM article and video about making holograms more real by adding ultrasound to give 3D images tactile (haptic) feedback to trick your body to "feel" the image! There's also mention of Leap Motion, which for those of you who've taken my Scratch classes, remember uses infrared sensors  to track the position of your body (like for each finger) that you can program to follow the x and y coordinates associated to a project you've designed on a platform like Scratch. Think: you can "play" a keyboard you design and program in Scratch by moving each finger associated to a key on that keyboard. To  "Touch the Virtual", researchers use Leap Motion to allow users to "feel" handling 3D objects, incorporating sound waves. For example, museums are now turning to 3D design to allow visitors better access to historical artifacts; imagine being able to "hold and touch" a dinosaur some time in the near future!

And the future is nearer than you think; just this week I learned XYZprinting is now partnering with WalMart to sell desktop 3D printers for less than $350; take a look at early reviews here. Wow; I'll dig around some more to learn about their reliability and performance and report back here soon ...