What if the virtual world were tangible?
You may have gotten a small taste by using a Nintendo Wii or a virtual reality simulator, but it’s clear that you get very little physical feedback by holding your very expensive, very intelligent smartphone — short of a small vibration, that is.
But it’s those tangible aspects that product engineers and designers have yet to stimulate in a more than rudimentary way — to truly take advantage of our natural, built-in senses.
In a presentation from TEDxBerlin, designer Fabian Hemmert imagines electronics and other systems that use physical stimulation to convey more complicated data than a simple alert.
For example, Hemmert imagines a shifting weight that tells you there’s more off the screen, or a change in size that could tell you that you’re halfway through your e-book — without looking at the page numbers.
Here’s the video:
