Tech hacks the nervous system to bring touch to virtual reality

Summary

Freethink explains how Afference’s Phantom brings the sense of touch to virtual worlds.

Virtual and augmented reality mostly serve two senses, sight and sound. “There is no reality to mixed or augmented reality until there’s touch,” chief science officer Dustin Tyler tells Freethink. He co-founded Afference with CEO Jacob Segil to add realistic touch to those experiences.

The Phantom is a palmless, fingerless glove. Rings on the fingers send electrical signals through the nerves, so the brain feels the virtual object — from the click of a button to the softness of a ripe avocado. The approach comes from Tyler’s 20 years of research on touch for prosthetic limbs.

The article reports that Afference showed the prototype at CES, where it won a Best of Innovation award, and that its next steps were seed funding and partnerships.