The military loves its technology and being the military they get to play with all the new tech goodies first. For some time now they have been using that access to cutting edge technology to create some pretty realistic virtual reality worlds for their soldiers to train in.
The only problem is that like the rest of us who get to play the public versions of those first person shooters in virtual worlds getting blown up or shot doesn’t really hurt all that much. This is something that the Army wants to change – and soon.
To help move that idea along the Army has put out a request for some technology that will “ create an impulse force that simulates the feel of debris … or bullets flying “; or getting blown up by an bomb perhaps.
The technical term for the request is actually “Haptic Feedback for a Virtual Explosion” with the idea being to make training exercises as realistic as technologically possible so that soldiers will have a better idea of what the reality of warfare is like, short of actually getting shot or blown up.
This idea is a lead up for the real military wet-dream – fighting with fake humans that feels real or in more techie terms “ tactile interaction with three dimensional interactive holograms “.
via io9
