The virtual reality that was depicted in Hollywood films such as “The 13th Floor,” “The Matrix” and “Tron Legacy” has yet to be created, but it seems that its alternative has arrived earlier than expected. The technology is called Dexmo, a wearable glove that lets you touch and feel virtual objects and from the looks of it, it is somewhat a reverse of what the concept of The Matrix is, as it brings virtual objects closer to our reality than we being brought into it.
The Dexmo wearable gloves brings a whole new concept on virtual reality interaction and how we can use it to change how we live, how we teach and learn and how we communicate.
It is an electronic device which can be attached to your hand like a glove and it produces a force feedback onto your fingers that lets you hold on to something that doesn’t really exist in reality – or at least in our reality that is. At the moment the creators of Dexmo is testing the wearable glove on a desktop computer with an installed software that helps generate the virtual hand and the force feedback (electronically induced) to your real hand that allows you to pick up objects as you see them on an LED monitor. In the future the Dexmo wearable gloves could be used by scientists in reconstructing an atom in CERN in order to create new elements that is a hundred times more powerful than nuclear bombs but are also a thousand times safer to use for harmless energy production. Or rearranging a DNA molecule to cure cancer, AIDS and other diseases that are extremely difficult to treat. The implications for its uses are endless!
Aside from the force feedback that the manufacturers put into the Dexmo wearable gloves, they also added an array of electronic sensors in it so that it could track your finger and thumb movements accurately – and even the orientation of your palm – this is as real as it can get! This will make virtual reality feel a lot like a real thing.
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etting investors into the project has proven to be a difficult task and so the creators of Dexmo wearable gloves has resorted to crowd sourcing or crowd funding, which is accepted via donations in any amount. As of November 2014 the Dextra Robotics company has accumulated over $200,000 USD in funding and by May this year they are expecting to ship out the first few orders from customers. The designers have stated that they have completed all tests with the gloves and have built a working prototype which should soon enable them to do mass production.
Dextra Robotics has four different categories for their Dexmo wearable gloves for sale and each category has a varying price range. Here they are:
– Optical Solution – Around $100
– Mechanical – Around $200
– IMU (inertia) – Around $500
– Bending Sensor – $500 – $5,000
The pricing mentioned above does not yet include shipping fees and VAT (Value Added Tax), so expect to pay a slightly higher rate when you place an order. The realistic applications for the Dexmo wearable gloves right now includes VR Operation System Control, Medical Rehabilitation, Robotics Manipulation, Music Production, Full VR Immersion Experience, Device Control, Alternative Input Device, Virtual Drawing in Space and Animation with Detailed Finger Movement.
