VR technology developer Tactical Haptics announced that it has raised $2.2 million in funding for its research in the field of VR haptics, putting the company closer to achieving its goal of producing tactile feedback controllers for virtual worlds.
The company’s latest funding round includes a $749,000 Small Business Innovation Research Phase II grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation, with seed investors SV Tech Ventures, the Youku Global Media Fund, SIG Asia Investment Fund, Sand Hill Angels, and the Stanford-StartX Fund providing an additional $1.47 million.
Tactical Haptics recently produced a working prototype of a VR haptics controller that provides realistic tactile feedback in response to virtual reality elements and gameplay. The approach marks a significant leap forward from the rumble-based tactile feedback technology featured in modern gaming consoles, giving players realistic sensations of weight, inertia, and tension.
“Current haptic interfaces are either too expensive, have limited range of motion (force feedback devices), or are too crude (rumble) to portray a broad range of realistic haptic interactions in VR,” Tactical Haptics stated in a press release issued this week.
“Tactical Haptics has created an ungrounded haptic motion controller that utilizes a new form of touch feedback that applies in-hand shear forces to create compelling physical feedback at a price that is viable for consumer markets. With this motion controller in hand, users get a realistic experience of the stretch of a bow and arrow, the inertia of a ball swinging on a chain, the impact of a ball on their virtual tennis racket, the tug of a fish in a fishing game, or the kick of a gun in their favorite shooter game.”
According to the press release, Tactical Haptics will use its latest funding round to create “a developer kit, including mini-games, for VR game developers so they can integrate the company’s advanced haptic controller with their VR game content.”
Speaking to Road to VR, Tactical Haptics CEO Will Provancher confirmed that his team will attend SteamVR’s tracking partner training program, making it likely that the HTC Vive will be the first VR headset to support the company’s haptics technology.
While the Tactical Haptics controller currently uses motion-tracking technology from Oculus Touch and HTC Vive controllers as a foundation, Provancher notes that the company is currently working toward an integrated solution that will not require additional controllers for input.
Pricing for the Tactical Haptics controller has not been revealed, and a release date is not yet known.
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.