One big item I see missing is haptic feedback. Like, if I ask myself in what ways is VR still different from regular reality, I feel like there is still a lot missing.[1]
I think working with physical objects is a big component of activities that can’t be done remotely currently. But even if we just focus on interpersonal communication, being able to touch other people is an important component. Even if we are just talking about a strictly formal business context, handshakes at least still almost always occur.
And I just don’t see high fidelity haptic feedback getting sufficiently advanced in the near future. Interaction even with just macro scale objects is still a major challenge. And the human touch is remarkably sensitive at the micro scale as well. “The lowest amplitude of the wrinkles so distinguished was approximately 10 nm, demonstrating that human tactile discrimination extends to the nanoscale.”[2] There is even research suggesting that we can sometimes detect single atom differences.[3]
I haven’t looked too much into that paper, but yeah, it could be that at smaller scales you are just perceiving the friction.
But just from personal experience, I am pretty confident that at least in the 10μm-100μm range humans have high fidelity tactile perception, and are able to distinguish various patterns and not just friction.
One big item I see missing is haptic feedback. Like, if I ask myself in what ways is VR still different from regular reality, I feel like there is still a lot missing.[1]
I think working with physical objects is a big component of activities that can’t be done remotely currently. But even if we just focus on interpersonal communication, being able to touch other people is an important component. Even if we are just talking about a strictly formal business context, handshakes at least still almost always occur.
And I just don’t see high fidelity haptic feedback getting sufficiently advanced in the near future. Interaction even with just macro scale objects is still a major challenge. And the human touch is remarkably sensitive at the micro scale as well. “The lowest amplitude of the wrinkles so distinguished was approximately 10 nm, demonstrating that human tactile discrimination extends to the nanoscale.”[2] There is even research suggesting that we can sometimes detect single atom differences.[3]
Admittedly though, a VR that is indistinguishable from reality would be very creepy.
https://doi.org/10.1038/srep02617
https://doi.org/10.1039/D1SM00451D
It is unclear from my reading of the paper that the result is anything beyond “fine waves cause friction, which humans can feel”
I haven’t looked too much into that paper, but yeah, it could be that at smaller scales you are just perceiving the friction.
But just from personal experience, I am pretty confident that at least in the 10μm-100μm range humans have high fidelity tactile perception, and are able to distinguish various patterns and not just friction.