Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!cmcl2!beta!hc!ames!sgi!daisy!klee
From: klee@daisy.UUCP (Ken Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Interesting note in input devices
Message-ID: <956@daisy.UUCP>
Date: 26 Mar 88 23:38:50 GMT
References: <8803251909.AA18070@bu-cs.bu.edu>
Reply-To: klee@daisy.UUCP (Ken Lee)
Organization: Daisy Systems Corp., Mountain View, Ca.
Lines: 23

In article <8803251909.AA18070@bu-cs.bu.edu> daisy!nsc!pyramid!decwrl!labrea!agate!ucbvax!BU-CS.BU.EDU!bzs bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes:
>
>Around the middle of the article there's a description of a product
>which uses a glove as an input device. Not new, but as far as I know
>this is the first orderable, commercial version I've seen for the
>general public. 

Actually, the glove has been available (in various forms) for some time
now.  A version is pictured and described in the cover article of
October, 1987 Scientific American.  VPL (last I heard, the were in
Redwood City, not Palo Alto) was selling them at SIGGRAPH last year.
NASA (who funds some of VPL's work) demonstrated earlier prototypes at
CHI'86.

The glove is incredibly fast and accurate.  The feedback stream includes
the position and orientation of the hand AND most finger joints.  The
major problem is the lack of 3D feedback.  I understand that VPL is
working on some sort of vibrator for tacticle feedback.  This is
extremely important if you're trying to pick up objects, etc.

Good stuff.  Check it out.

Ken