Procrastinating? We’ve got just the thing! The YTT have pulled together a series of TED Talks that they LOVE. Grab some popcorn and get comfy, because you’re about to get seriously inspired by these amazing engineering projects.
What is this TED talk about?
It’s about haptography, which is combining haptics (touch technology) with photography. The basis of this is that they can recreate the feeling of touching something using computers.
What’s amazing about it?
It’s really cool altogether! An example that the speaker gave was with dental students. They attached an accelerometer to a dental tool, and the main dental professor touches extracted teeth with it. The movements are recorded and recreated for the students. They watch a video and follow along by holding a repeating tool (which moves the same way the dental tool did).
How did it inspire you?
This is an incredible technology which has endless applications, anywhere from training dental and medical students to online shopping! It’s definitely going to become more popular and more developed as time goes on, but the implications of this technology are what inspires me. The possibilities are endless! People could do almost anything with this technology, which I find really interesting and inspiring.
What surprised you?
The main idea of it all, as weird as that sounds! I’d never heard of haptography before, and now, after hearing about it for a very brief time, I can only imagine the ways that it could be used. It’s so cool that there’s a technology that could allow you to feel like you’re touching something through a computer! I never knew that was even something that could be done!
Did you ever have an idea about developing something yourself that solves a problem in the world? Tell us all about it
I’ve thought about the idea for a technology where you could feel and smell things in a movie, TV show, or video game, but never really thought about the potential that it could be done. I never really thought about it that deeply, more as just an idea. If it could be done, however, it would be an incredible development for these forms of media. This wouldn’t solve a problem as much as it would just enrich movies, TV shows, and video games to make them better.