After year in production , virtual reality(VR ) headsets are now hitting the consumer shelves . But tech companies are already appear to the future , and formulate the next step in VR . Haptic baseball glove for deterrent example , which will allow users contact and sense objects that are not in reality there , are already in progression .
But what about our other senses ? Well , researchershave been developingways to make it potential for us taste in VR .
At least two teams have been play on ways to trick our mentality into believing that not only are we tasting something that is not there , but also chewing something . Presented at the Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology , research worker from the National University of Singaporeshowed how they were ableto copy the gustation of odoriferous food using a organisation that rapidly heat and cools the tongue .
“ Being a enjoyable sentience , sweetness is recognized as the most preferred sensation among the five primary taste hotshot , ” write the research worker . “ We salute a novel method to virtually simulate the sensation of sweetness by give thermic stimulation to the steer of the human tongue . event fromthe preliminary experimentssuggest that the participants were able to perceive mild pleasantness on the summit of their knife while using the proposed system . ”
In the experiments , the participants have to touch their natural language to the thermoelectric elements , with around one-half of all test detecting the sensation of sweetness . Others report that when the element was hotter , they tasted spiciness , while when it was cool it was more minty .
The research worker do n’t necessarily have their heart on using it for conventional VR , however , but instead suggest that the devices could be accommodate to glasses so trick people into thinking that low - sugar drink are really sweet than they are .
But another radical of researcher from the University of Tokyois pore on another aspectof eating and seeing if they can bring it to practical realness , namely the texture of food . They have placed electrodes on the muscle in the jaw used for manducate , and by interpolate the frequency and duration of an galvanizing impulse , have been capable to imitate grade of hardness and elasticity of practical food .
In experiments , they have tricked participant into thinking that material food they are physically jaw has a immensely different texture .
All of these developments , as mentioned before , are in the early phase of advancement , but could one day make a practical world a much richer place to be .
[ H / TNew Scientist ]
