Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has unveiled the prototype of a haptic glove that will allow users feel objects in Virtual Reality (VR), and subsequently the metaverse.
The glove was unveiled by Meta Reality Labs, and has a series of small air pockets which are referred to as actuators on the palms and along the fingers as well, which then inflate to provide the users with a sense of touch. Making this haptic glove commercial goes in line with Meta’s objective to morph into what they refer to as the ‘metaverse’, which is a collective virtual space that features avatars of real people.
The development work on the glove has not been finished yet, but once it is finalized and released to the general market, it will give users the ability to tell the difference between holding various materials in the metaverse, such as a sheet of paper or a plastic bowl.
MailOnline was told by a spokesperson from Meta that the haptic glove is currently only a prototype, and no release date has been finalized for it yet.
The Facebook company rebranded itself as Meta in October, due to an infatuation for the metaverse. Sometime in the future, users will be able to access the metaverse through the use of VR and AR (Augmented Reality) headsets or even smart glasses. The metaverse can even then be used for work, education, music events, gaming and several other activities.
The haptic glove is however likely to be only one of the physical products that the company will sell years later in order to allow consumers enter the metaverse properly. Meta Reality Labs in a blog post said that the glove creates the illusion of feeling the wooden properties of a piece of a jigsaw puzzle, or the plastic properties of a computer keyboard as you type away.
The glove’s haptic technology gives it the ability to create the touch experience by using motions, forces or vibrations. Meta then said that vibrations would not be enough to distinguish between different objects, and that the glove needs hundreds of actuators spread all over the hand which move in concert in a way that makes the person wearing it feel like they are touching something.