Creepy metaverse users could soon have the power to lunge in for a kiss thanks to new tech. As if the metaverse wasn’t bad enough with seedy strip clubs and naked avatars, experts want to take the realism a step further.
Scientists have created a device that brings a feeling sensation to the mouth, lips, and tongue. They pulled it off by adding a load of special ultrasonic transducers to a VR headset. At the moment, the metaverse and VR are largely focused on 360 visuals, sound, and hand controls.
Although experts don’t show how it could be used to kiss, you can imagine how it might become a popular use case for virtual lovers. Instead, they demonstrate the technology being used in various scenarios, such as a haunted adventure game with spiders.
Testers felt sensations on their lips as they walked through webs, creepy crawlers jumped up at their face, and even a sensory feeling from exploding spiders when you shoot them.
It uses a thin array of transducers integrated into the underside of the VR headset that direct ultrasound energy at different parts of the mouth. As well as kissing sensations, the tech could be used to drink from a virtual water fountain or take a puff from a cigarette.
The prototype headset, which is an adapted Oculus Quest 2, has been developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Future Interfaces Group in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Importantly, the modified headset doesn’t require any equipment to be put up against or into a user’s mouth; instead, the components are rested above the nose.
According to the team, the mouth has been largely overlooked as a haptic target in VR and augmented reality (AR), despite being second in terms of sensitivity behind the fingertips.
Usually, haptic feedback applies vibrations to a person’s hands via controllers, often in video games to match the gameplay (such as feeling a vibration in FIFA when a football strikes the post). ‘Proximity of the mouth to the headset offers a significant opportunity to enable on- and in-mouth haptic effects, without needing to run wires or wear an extra accessory,’ the researchers say.
