It’s not that touchscreen keyboards are horrible, but it’s nearly impossible to touch type on an iPad or other tablet keyboard. A team at the Media Computing Group at Aachen University figured out how to put a series of electromagnets underneath a display to provide haptic feedback for touchscreens. They showed off their tech at the 2011 UIST conference and made their paper available.

For the FingerFlux, as the team likes to call it, a bed of tiny electromagnets is placed underneath a panel display. The user wears a ‘thimble’ with an attached permanent magnet. Driving the bed of electromagnets slightly moves the magnet and provides a little bit of sensation to the user.

The FingerFlux can be used to provide haptic feedback like a keyboard. The system can also be used to model constraints – making sure that users don’t move outside the controls they operate, and can guide the user to the desired button.

A bed of electromagnets would be a welcome addition to tablets, if only to prevent typung luje rhus. Check out the demo of the FingerFlux after the break.

Thanks go to [John] for sending this one in.

Using a scanning laser similar to those used in industrial safety systems, a new wheelchair developed by Sweden’s Luleå University of Technology allows those who are visually impaired to drive it without assistance. A driver is given haptic feedback as a navigation aid, reportedly similar to using a cane.

Although something like this is good in concept, this idea is already a working prototype. Doctoral student Daniel Innala Ahlmark (who is visually impaired himself) has already taken this wheelchair on a test run in his university’s busy Computer Science, Electrical, and Space Engineering Department. After this test run he remarked that he “felt safe like using a white cane.”

It’s really neat to see engineering and hacking skills put to use to help people who are impaired in some way (even cooler to see someone visually impaired helping with the process itself!). For more “hacks” related to helping people check out this brain controlled wheelchair, or this mobility device for kids.

[polymythic] Is helping the blind see with his haptic feedback device called HALO. At the heart of the device is an Arduino Mega 2560 which senses objects with a few ultrasonic range finders and then relays the information back to the user using some vibration motors from old cell phones. The user can feel the distance by the frequency at which the motor pulses. The faster the motors pulse the closer an object is.

This kind of sensing is something that it can be applied to pretty much any sensor allowing the user to feel something that might be otherwise invisible. While haptic feedback is nothing new its good to see continuing work with new sensors and different setups.

The Novint Falcon is one of the first mass produced and consumer friendly versions of a haptic feedback device. With force capabilities of 2lbs and a resolution of 400dpi the unit can interact with several software programs and video games. The unit sells for around $239 and includes several compatible games.

Some inventors like [Steve Yohanan] feel robots need better response to the basic human touch. His latest creation the Haptic Creature is a small bunny that responds to touch through pressure sensors and then responds. Different forms of touch result in the creature changing it’s breathing, purring, and of course wiggling its little bunny ears.

On the fun side of things, we have several toys making their way into the market with haptic feedback features built in. The Pleo being one for of the more advanced examples with it’s almost unlimited amount of responses and feedback. The toy itself is touted as something to interact with as opposed to simply control. UGOBE is also talking up its therapeutic value for both children and adults.

While some of this technology may seem out of reach of DIY, there is one organization trying to bring open source to the scene. Backed by SenseGraphic the H3D API is an open source initiative to help programmers interface with various haptic devices. Browse their hall of fame page to see what individuals and universities have done with the API. This PDF also provides a broad overview of the history of haptics.

We’ve covered a ton of haptic projects here on Hackaday: D’Groove a force feedback turntable, a personal haptic radar, a PSP with feedback, and even reverse engineering the Falcon we mentioned earlier.

[via Gizmodo]