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“The process of authentication or the fundamental skills of communicating and learning can be enhanced with a touch screen that provides tactile or touch feedback. Devices that provide synchronized sound and graphics upon touch are more intuitive, personal and satisfying. Now the predictive sensation of touch and response can be applied to touch screens to heighten interaction and usability”

My thoughts of Haptics and technology

This is a perfect example of our groups Nonverbal Codes, on Haptics. I feel that this gives the reader a good idea and understanding of what Haptics is and how it is used. This is not only for everyday use but also through technology which is a cool and great new concept. I know that for most people this idea of combing the two has not been around for long and is a break through not only technology but also for the idea of Haptics alone. I bet that Helslin would place this sort of Hapitcs as functional.

Heslin (1974) outlines the five haptic categories:
1. Functional/professional
2. Social/polite
3. Friendship/warmth
4. Love/intimacy
5. Sexual/arousal
This is only on function that this idea fallows of Heslin on his idea of Haptics. I also feel that this idea and reason for this technology can also fall under the category as social. This is for the sole reason that computers are made mostly for communication.

Artifact

“Haptic technology simulates the sense of touch -- via computer Tactile interface lets surgeons make 'incisions'; computer gamers feel their golf drives
Anyone who thinks a pinch means they aren't dreaming hasn't tried haptics. J. Kenneth Salisbury Jr., research professor of computer science and of surgery, develops tools that allow people to touch --poke, squeeze, stroke and heave -- the objects they see on their computer screen.
Haptics, the science of touch, lets computer users interact with virtual worlds by feel. Some commercial computer games already benefit from early haptic devices, like the force-feedback steering wheels that torque and vibrate on bumpy driving-game roads. But haptics isn't all fun and games. Scientists use computers to simulate not only the impact of a golf club hitting the ball, but also the springiness of a kidney under forceps, the push of an individual carbon nanotube in an atomic force microscope and the texture of clothing for sale on the Internet.

Graduate student François Conti demonstrates a device that lets computer users feel and manipulate the objects depicted on their screens. This spider-like robot can take tactile "pictures." In the lab of Kenneth Salisbury, professor of computer science and of surgery, Conti and other researchers explore haptics -- the science of touch. Photo: L.A. Cicero

Using Salisbury's haptic technology is like exploring the virtual world with a stick. If you run your stick along a cyberspace sidewalk, it vibrates lightly. If you push it into a virtual balloon, you feel the balloon push back. The computer communicates sensations through a haptic interface -- a stick, scalpel, racket or pen that is connected to force-exerting motors.

"By coordinating the forces that are exerted on your handle or your stick or your stylus or your fingertips, you can make it feel as though you're touching something," says Salisbury.
Touch is an unusual sense in that it goes two ways. Haptic interfaces can communicate the contours of a sculpture, and they can apply pressure to sculpt. SensAble Technologies Inc., a spinoff from work Salisbury and colleagues did when he was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, commercialized one such haptic interface in 1993. Designers have used it to carve out of thin air products from Nike shoe soles to Chicken Run collectibles.

Salisbury's Stanford lab also uses a haptic interface from ForceDimension, a company co-founded by graduate student Francois Conti. Conti is using one such device to take tactile "pictures." The spiderlike robot handle presses on a surface and records the forces causing deformation. It can then play back the forces it experienced and make a person holding the handle feel like he's poking the surface himself.

Gaming is one of the first applications of haptics that is being realized. Two students in Salisbury's experimental haptics course last spring programmed a forceful version of virtual ping-pong they called "Haptic Battle Pong." Interest in the game caused an Internet traffic jam that shut down the haptic interface manufacturer's website for a day.”

Also in the works is simulated surgery. Just as commercial pilots train in flight simulators before they're unleashed on real passengers, surgeons will be able to practice their first incisions without actually cutting anyone. Simulation for surgical training is a major focus in Salisbury's lab. This work is funded by the National Institutes of Health and Stanford's Bio-X Program.Creating a realistic, interactive internal organ is no easy feat. "It's not just something that you can touch and say, 'OK, it's round and it's squishy and it's got a bump here,' but something that you can then cut and it will bleed, or sew and it will stop bleeding," Salisbury says.

A liver is more complicated to model than is a ping-pong ball. For a ball, all you have to tell the computer is how soft or hard it is, how sticky or smooth, how stretchy, how dense. One value for each will do the trick. But a liver may get stiffer as you stretch it, or be more elastic in one direction than another. A healthy liver may feel nice and slippery, and a sick liver, not. And modeling the organ in real time, so that the image deforms when you poke it and not a second later, runs up against the limits of computing power.

Go ahead -- squeeze the Charmin
Opposable thumbs are the next step in the evolution of computer haptics. Grasping is a much more natural way to interact with the virtual world. In May, postdoctoral researcher Federico Barbagli will travel to the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Taiwan to present the Salisbury lab's most recent gripper.

The gripper consists of little haptic hats for the thumb and forefinger. With this new two-fingered haptic interface, researchers can pick up a virtual block, and then let it slip controllably between their fingers. That feat requires a degree of finesse, Salisbury says, that simply was not possible before.
The new gripper also has the advantage of being transparent. "A well-designed haptic device is one that makes you feel a contact when you're touching something in the virtual environment, and magically disappears when you're not touching anything," Barbagli says.

Eventually, surgeons will sew virtual stitches with two hands, and virtual surgery will take on an unprecedented degree of realism. "People will really begin to feel like they're holding the tissue and they're tearing it," Salisbury says. "And they'll feel bad about it because they squeezed too hard."
Stanford Report, April 2, 2003

Haptics Functional and Professional

"hap•tics definition
A science concerned with the sense of touch "
This is the definition word for word proved to me my dictionary.com and this is very close but not the same definition that is giving to us and our classroom book. This definition makes a lot of scenes because of the origin, which is provided by the link and paragraph below.
The origin of the word haptics is the Greek haptikos, meaning able to grasp or perceive. Haptic sensations are created in consumer devices by actuators, or motors, which create a vibration. Those vibrations are managed and controlled by embedded software, and integrated into device user interfaces and applications via the embedded control software APIs.

What I have learned

I was very intrigued by the particular topic of haptics, and gained such an interesting perspective after reading all of our blog posts.

I was most interested in "Haptics in Sports", and the ability that we were able to relate this topic to an everyday past time where I could analyze certain sporting events that I watch. With so much verbal communication that drives coaches, athletes, etc., I was happy to find all of the non verbal nuances of the game, that I wouldn't particularly look for in a sporting event.

I also was able to gain a greater understanding of haptics through all of the research articles that my group members had posted. The photos and videos really added another element that will help the reader become more informed through a variety of different mediums.

In closing, I feel that I have a much greater understanding of our topic, and I catch my self being much more of non only my non verbal behavior, but that of others!

What I Have Learned, cont'd

Beginning with Laura's definition from wikipedia, haptics is "the study of touching as nonverbal communication, and haptic communication refers to how people and other animals communicate via touching."

Throughout this blog I have learned so much. We learned that we begin using haptic touch at birth and use it throughout our lifetime. I learned that haptics nonverbal communication differs between men and women and also differs in different cultures. From handshakes to kisses to hugs, these are all forms of haptic nonverbal communication and convey different meanings depending on the settings. Haptic touch can happen in sports, intimate relations, and even our cell phones. In sports, especially high-contact sports, we can see how the players interact with each other nonverbally and the gestures they use. With cell phones, we use haptic technology, especially with touch screen cell phones. I use haptic technology with my iPhone everyday.

Overall, I learned that haptics are key for human exploration in this world. We utilize touch everyday of our lives. This blog really opened my eyes to the different degrees of haptics nonverbal communication. It really is everywhere we look in the world.

What I Have Learned

In my definition of haptics at the beginning of this blog, I wrote that Haptics is the study of touch in non-verbal communication. According to wikipedia, haptics is "the study of touching as nonverbal communication, and haptic communication refers to how people and other animals communicate via touching."

In the subsequent posts by my fellow group members, we discovered examples of touch, and the different areas where we see haptics in the world today. We learned that touch begins at birth, and lasts a lifetime. Anyone who owns a cell phone that uses haptics technology is directly impacted by haptics. We might not have thought about it that way before this blog.

In addition, during this blog and in our studies, I learned that a handshake is a prime example of haptics nonverbal communication. Every time I meet someone at work, I shake their hands while introducing myself. It really is true that you learn something about someone by participating in something as simple as a handshake.

There are other examples of haptics non verbal communication, and how it is approached by people in different cultures, and between genders. I learned how touch is so important to us, and how it begins at birth.  As a Mother, I know how important it was to touch, and hold, my children when they were young. As a result of how their parents approached touch, I believe both of my children approach touch the same way. As a child, I know how comforting touch was when I was much younger, and how it still is comforting as a middle-aged woman.

When I watch a football game, I pay attention to what kind of haptics nonverbal communication is used by the players in the game. Last, I pay attention to how men and women use it in a social gathering.

I believe this blog was a real learning experience because it allowed me to learn about a subject that I use on a daily basis.