Ah, Sharp’s at it again. Diving into the VR world with their funky new haptic controller prototype. It’s like they’re trying to bring touch to the virtual realm. I mean, sure, you can’t actually feel a kitten purring in VR, but they say you can kinda sense texture now – like whether something’s rough or smooth. How? They’ve got these tiny little vibration thingies on the fingertips. Fancy, right?
Now, I’m not saying it’s perfect. Sharp admits it’s not exactly like feeling stuff in real life, but they’re tweaking those vibration parameters to get all sorts of sensations. And they’re not hoarding it until it’s flawless either. Bold move – they want users to help polish it up. A bit like a communal cooking pot. Everyone adds a bit, tastes, and tweaks.
Oh, and they threw in some visual aid – there’s this image of the controller. Looks sleek. But, honestly, I couldn’t tell you what half of those bits do just from a picture. Anyway… right… the controllers, they’re a pair – one for each hand. No glove-like precision with finger tracking though. And forget about it heating up or cooling down. No fancy force feedback either. Feels kind of standard, with sticks and buttons and all.
What’s a bit of a mystery is how they’ll track these gizmos. They hinted at using some mainstream tracking tech. But who knows? Maybe they’ll surprise us all. So, it’s still in demo mode, like a band playing its first gig – no clear path to a commercial release yet. Folks in Japan might get to play with this ‘early version’ though, if they’re lucky. Sold for 100,000 yen – which, side note, is around $680 if you’re curious.
Oh, almost forgot – Sharp’s not just new kids on the block in the XR game. They’ve been around the block a few times. They were the screen pros behind Meta Quest 2, and not too long ago, they launched those MiRZA AR glasses with NTT Docomo. So, maybe they do know a thing or two… or a hundred. But keep in mind, they’re being cautious – it might never see the light of day. You never know with these tech things.
