Reality Lab is a division of Facebook’s new parent company Meta. It is now working to create haptic gloves. It can give the sense of virtual touch. When the user will touch a virtual object in the metaverse then they will be able to feel the virtual texture and pressure as it happens in the real world.
Mark Zuckerberg, Founder of Facebook and CEO of Meta has shared a video on his page. Within a few minutes, it has been viral. In this video, he has seen using the haptic glove and is doing interact with the virtual world such as Jenga pieces.
Meta is formerly known as Facebook. Their Reality Lab team is working to develop haptic gloves for the last seven years. The company said in a press release that now they have done a breakthrough in microfluidics and soft robotics. Still, these are in progress.
The gloves are developed with pads known as actuators or Meta calls it tiny soft motors. The company also said that the gloves are customizable and comfortable and will “reproduce a range of sensations in virtual worlds, including texture, pressure, and vibration.” Besides that, it will also work with one’s VR headset for immersive feeling such as poker games.
In scientific research, these gloves throw a new challenge. It opens a new domain of scientific research. The research with Perceptual science, Soft Robotics, Microfluidics, Hand tracking, and Haptic rendering Meta has broken the boundaries and has made something challenging.
In ‘Perceptual Science’ Meta has to “explore the idea of combining auditory, visual, and haptic feedback for things like convincing a wearer’s perceptual system that it’s a feeling an object’s weight.” The company also developing the world’s first high-speed ‘Microfluidic processor’. It can control the airflow which moves the actuators.
The company told that the gloves were built with “advanced hand-tracking technology to enable it to identify precisely where your hand is in a virtual scene.” Besides the ‘Haptic renderer’ is also there. It can send precise instructions to the actuators of the hand.
Now the world is excited about its progress as everyone can touch the virtual world with the help of this technology.
