“Pocket-lint has had it all but confirmed that the iPad 3 will contain some never before seen touch technology. Senseg isn’t a company you will have heard of but it makes a technology that promises to turn touch screens into Feel Screens and, come tonight, after the Apple event, it looks set to have a home in the latest must-have gadget,” Stuart Miles reports for Pocket-lint.
“‘We won’t be making any statements until after Apple’s announcement,’ a company spokesman told Pocket-lint with a timing that’s just too obvious to be anything else after we asked them the direct question of whether Senseg is involved in the iPad 3 launch,” Miles reports.
Miles reports, “To get the full picture you have to rewind back to June 2011. In an opinion piece, ‘How Finland Brought Down Nokia & Revived Itself,’ for Trusted Reviews, the UK freelance journalist Gordon Kelly wrote: ‘Senseg is a haptics technology company founded just five years ago, the start of Nokia’s decline. Unlike haptics until this point, Senseg is working on creating complex textures rather than simply buzzing your fingertips. The aim is to make a corrugated surface feel corrugated, a rough surface rough, a soft surface soft. The first products will ship by the end of this year and again Nokia is not Senseg’s first port of call. ‘We are currently working with a certain tablet maker based in Cupertino,’ reveals Senseg senior vice president Ville Mäkinen.'”
CNET, January 2012:
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “And touch.”
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
I considered this a couple of days ago, we`ll know soon enough.
I thought Haptics died in 2009. I always felt it was a feature you put in a cheap phone or pad to make up for the fact that the deice was not an Apple product.
just my $0.02
Let`s see how it works before calling it cheap.
“a feature you put in a cheap phone or pad to make up for the fact that the deice was not an Apple product”
That’s exactly what touch screens were before the iPhone was released.
If what you have to say is only worth two cents then don’t bother saying it. If you really believe in it, then just say it and stop being such a poultry feces. Say what you mean and mean what you say.
Poultry feces? How refined. 😉
Mate, if you mean ‘chicken shit’ then just say so.
Did you read the article? It’s not the old “haptics”, that you are thinking about.
I wonder how you program for this… Wouldn’t we need a new sdk, so likely ios6?
Crap, now I want one. I was going to skip this until iPad 4.
I would be really surprised if they introduce this today. I’ve tried out various haptics technologies that are in development, and they’ve been pretty cheezy so far.
That said, Apple might surely surprise everyone.
Only if you stop calling them Shirley.
What’s our vector, Victor?
I hope they bought out this company to keep this tech off of the compitition.
That was my first thought too. I mean really, if you don’t by up little companies like this, then who are you gonna buy?
Crap! Is it too late to buy shares in Senseg?
Of course not. I’m sure it’s too late to get a good price however.
umm…it’s not too late, it’s too early. (what makes you think all companies are publicly owned?)
One can only wonder what this will do for internet porn.
lmao.
now we could know for sure who is “natural” or not 😉
Awesome! And I agree with Tyler- if Apple integrates this into iDevices (and even Macs, why not?), they should buy the company. No need letting Android license this too…
Oooh baby!
Ok, that is cool. And it will be wonderful for those who are visually-impaired. Great job Senseg and Apple Team!
Internet porn has no business on Apple products! Leave that for the gutter products! Integrity, style, beauty! Everything porn and porn users are not IMO!
In other words, leave it for Android?
There goes iMaki’s head in the gutter again…….sigh.
Get real. If you think that porn doesn’t exist on (i)OS products, you’re delusional. The good part is that it isn’t shared with the rest of the world (now that Google is disabled…), courtesy of Steve’s ideals of privacy.
I hate to break it to you but, according to widely publicised numbers, porn rakes in approximately $900 million per year. So, unless it is 900 perverts spending million dollars each, it looks like mainstream Americans love their porn (comes out to an average of around $10 per each wholesome American family…).
I would venture a guess that at least one third of all iOS devices (consequently, iPads, too) has been used for enjoyment of ‘adult entertainment’ (the lovely American euphemism for pornography).
Um…One could argue the MDN and similar tech sites are a form of Internet porn…
There’s plenty of porn websites accessible to Apple products. Porn websites were some of the first create website specifically optimized for small touch screen screens and to embrace h.264 HTML5 video instead of Flash.
What about porn on the App Store? No, thanks. That’s bad for all the young kids casually browsing the App store, that’s bad for Apple’s image, and it’s almost always a terrible idea to let porn venders install software onto a computer.
You really want porn apps that can post notifications, access your contacts, photo library, background processes, and other iOS API’s? I don’t think so. Leave native porn spyware to Android.
Oh how I would live that “touchy feely” experience!
haptic = first thing I said when i saw the invite.
Tuesday afternoon, March 6, 2012: Haptic. “Huh?”
Wednesday afternoon, March 7, 2012: Haptic. “WOW!”
It’s gonna be snap-haptic!
Correction:
Tuesday afternoon, March 6, 2012: Haptic. “Huh?”
Wednesday afternoon, March 7, 2012: Haptic. still “Huh!”
If this is a new feature they are showing today and if it is as well thought out and implemented as the rest of their technology then this takes the whole mobile device experience to another level AGAIN.
This does not bode well for other mobile manufacturers… So sad 🙁
Bill gates dream realized. With touch like this think of all the blind people reading books in Braille as well as feeling illustrations on the IPad or iPod.
My new dilemma is, after waiting sooo long to get an iPad, if this newest generation doesn’t have this technology (and I can’t imagine it will. Why haven’t we heard ANYTHING about this until this morning???), then will I now wait, again, for this next “one more thing”?
ISTR Margaret Minsky (computer pioneer Marvin Minsky’s daughter) did some pioneering haptics research back when Swivel3D was the premier 3D modeling application for Virtual Reality immersion. (i.e., the 1980’s.)
There was a glove that pressured the skin to make the wearer feel different surfaces – sandpaper, for example – or even braille.
I read about it in Howard Rheingold’s 1992 book, ‘Virtual Reality: The Revolutionary Technology of Computer-Generated Artificial Worlds – and How It Promises to Transform Society’.
Now, I’m gonna be disappointed if today Apple doesn’t release an iPad for the blind.
I can’t wait to try typing on it and see if the experience is similar to a physical keyboard.
I work with people who are blind and visually impaired. Implemented correctly, this could be a game changer for accessibilty. A refreshable braille display for computers is several thousand dollars. This type of tactle feedback, coupled with voiceover, would put Apple light years ahead of other technology companies. I hope this rumor is true!
This would be interesting for the on-screen game control buttons. Being able to feel where the button is for games like FIFA and NHL etc..
I say this tops Slamdungs touch response and believe Apple will adopt it in iPad3.
Shame this rumour wasn’t true.
“The new iPad” (why the hell not just call it iPad 3??) was rather a let-down – nothing unexpected or innovative at all, just an HD screen, camera improvements and an underwhelming processor bump. Absolutely predictable and frankly rather boring.
Had they added in a new feature like this then it’d have been genuinely exciting and innovative.