Science Illusion Out-Of-Body Sensation

Using virtual reality goggles, a camera and a stick, scientists have induced out-of-body experiences — the sensation of drifting outside of one’s own body — - in healthy people, according to experiments being published in the journal Science.
     

When people gaze at an illusory image of themselves through the goggles and are prodded in just the right way with the stick, they feel as if they have left their bodies.

The research reveals that “the sense of having a body, of being in a bodily self,” is actually constructed from multiple sensory streams, said Matthew Botvinick, an assistant professor of neuroscience atPrinceton University, an expert on body and mind who was not involved in the experiments.

Usually these sensory streams, which include vision, touch, balance and the sense of where one’s body is positioned in space, work together seamlessly, Prof. Botvinick said. But when the information coming from the sensory sources does not match up, when they are thrown out of synchrony, the sense of being embodied as a whole comes apart.

The brain, which abhors ambiguity, then forces a decision that can, as the new experiments show, involve the sense of being in a different body.

The research provides a physical explanation for phenomena usually ascribed to other-worldly influences, said Peter Brugger, a neurologist at University Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland. After severe and sudden injuries, people often report the sensation of floating over their body, looking down, hearing what is said, and then, just as suddenly, find themselves back inside their body. Out-of-body experiences have also been reported to occur during sleep paralysis, the exertion of extreme sports and intense meditation practices.

Source:The New York Times

FEEL THE TOUCH

Revel is a new wearable tactile technology that modifies the user’s tactile perception of the physical world. Current tactile technologies enhance objects and devices with various actuators to create rich tactile sensations, limiting the experience to the interaction with instrumented devices. In contrast, REVEL can add artificial tactile sensations to almost any surface or object with very little if any instrumentation of the environment. As a result, REVEL can provide dynamic tactile sensations on touch screens as well as everyday objects and surfaces in the environment, such as furniture, walls, wooden and plastic objects, and even human skin. 

Revel is based on Reverse-Electrovibration. It applies a weak electrical signal anywhere on the user’s body, creating an oscillating electrical field around the user’s skin. When sliding one's fingers on a surface of the object, the user perceives highly distinctive tactile textures that augment the physical object. Varying the properties of the signal, such as the shape, amplitude and frequency, can provide a wide range of tactile sensations.

Revel is based on Reverse Electrovibration. It injects an imperceptible electrical signal into the user’s body that creates an electrostatic field around the skin. When sliding one's fingers on a physical object covered with an electrode and insulator, the electrostatic force modulates the friction between the sliding finger and the object. BothRevel and the objects share common ground. 

Revel can be embedded in the casing of mobile displays. In this application, the user can change both the visual texture and the tactile texture of an object without any instrumentation of the physical object itself. Since the Revelsignal is applied to the user through the casing of the device, the tactile textures can be felt by the finger touching the display, as well as when the user slides his finger on the physical object itself. 

  

      

source:oliver bau

Google Glass(Welcome to the future)

Google Glass (styled as "Google GLΛSS") is a wearable computer with a head-mounted display (HMD) that is being developed by Google in the Project Glass research and development project, with the mission of producing a mass-market ubiquitous computer.Google Glass displays information in a smartphone-like hands-free format, that can interact with the Internet via natural language voice commands. While the frames do not currently have lenses fitted to them, Google is considering partnering with sun glass retailers such as Ray-Ban or War by Parker, and may also open retail stores to allow customers to try on the device. The Explorer Edition cannot be used by people who wear prescription glasses, but Google has confirmed that Glass will eventually work with frames and lenses that match the wearer's prescription; the glasses will be modular and therefore possibly attachable to normal prescription glasses.

Glass is being developed by Google X Lab, which has worked on other futuristic technologies such as driver

less cars. The project was announced on Google+ by Project Glass lead Babak Parviz, an electrical engineer who has also worked on putting displays into contact lenses; Steve Lee, a product manager and "geo location specialist"; and Sebastian Thrun, who developed Udacity as well as worked on the self-driving car project.Google has patented the design of Project Glass.Thad Starner, an augmented reality expert, is a technical lead/manager on the project.

Google co-founder Sergey Brin took the stage at TED Wednesday morning for an unscheduled, low-key talkon Google Glass. His aim: to reveal a little bit of the thinking behind the two-year-old project and why he thinks the eyeglass-based always-connected screen is less intrusive than constantly checking your smartphone.

Prototypes :

Though head-worn displays for augmented reality are not a new idea, the project has drawn media attention primarily due to its backing by Google, as well as the prototype design, which is smaller and slimmer than previous designs for head-mounted displays The first Project Glass demo resembles a pair of normal eyeglasses where the lens is replaced by a head-up display.  In the future, new designs may allow integration of the display into people’s normal eye wear.

Google originally targeted 2014 for a consumer release when it revealed Project Glass last year, but the time frame has seemingly sped up in recent months, what with developer hackathons in San Francisco and New York and this week’s announcement that people looking to put Glass to creative use could go through an application process to preorder the augmented reality specs for $1,500.

The plastic components of Google Glass will debut in five colors: gray, orange, black, white, and light blue.

Source:wiki