Beyond the haptics, the MX-5000 is a fairly standard high-end universal remote, intended for system builders to pair with similarly high-end home media systems—not your 40-inch HDTV. This explains the unorthodox button choice and inclusion of Wi-Fi, which the remote uses to display all manner of information broadcast from your receiver. It also explains the price price—although there’s no official figure, Crunchgear’s inquiry was answered with an ominous “below $US1500.”

Even if most people could never dreaming of needing one of these, the concept is still exciting: having to looks at a remote every time you use it feels like a step back, so if URC can clear that hurdle, more power to them. [Crunchgear]

The fingerprint ID also, of course, can theoretically act as a security device so that only you can activate your phone. There’s also haptic (physical) feedback when you’re hitting things, as well as using the touchscreen as an RFID reader. None of the three are really mindblowing in themselves, on the surface, but if implemented intelligently might make for a big step forward in the iPhone product line. [Macrumors via Boy Genius]

The new soft keyboard improvement, called TouchSense, is designed to mimic both the feel and sound of a real, mechanical keyboard, to enable easier transitioning between keys. Immersive Messaging, on the other hand, is a cornball idea that’s essentially text messaging gussied up with haptic feedback: You can send a heart design to your significant other, and he or she can feel it “beating,” which kind of sounds more scary than romantic to me. They dub such icons “Hapticons.” Even further, they announced “Twiddling,” which is essentially a separate app in which two people can “feel” each other through haptic feedback on their iPhones. Now you see what I mean about that corny romantic nonsense.

Both TouchSense and Immersive Messaging were demonstrated on the iPhone, and the Immersion rep dodged questions about possible other platforms (*cough* WebOS *cough*) and even Immersion’s immediate plans for their creations. We could see Immersive Messaging showing up as an irritating app, a theory the Immersion rep wouldn’t deny. [All Things D]

Philips senior scientist Paul Lemmens and a team of researchers have devised a jacket—but sorry dudes, no matching pants—that augments your emotions with gentle nudges, squeezes and taps. The point? To cause “a shiver to go up the viewer’s spine and creating the feeling of tension in the limbs,” Lemmens told IEEE Spectrum, on the eve of the World Haptics Conference where he’s presenting the jacket.

Lemmens says that during a Bruce Lee fight scene, the jacket can pulse with the gu-goong gu-goong gu-goong of an elevated heartbeat. (All good, until you remember that Bruce Lee’s heart rate never went above 42 beats per minute his whole life.)

The jacket’s versatile fondling techniques come from 64 actuators, clustered in groups of four along different parts of the torso and arms—eight in each sleeve, for instance. They are low-powered enough to be run on two AA batteries for an hour, but hopefully they’ll make room for more batteries, since the average movie is over 2 hours, including trailers. The signals to pinch your arm, tighten your chest, or sooth your back would come from the film itself, kinda like how those D-Box motion chairs follow pre-determined cues that are synced with the action on the screen.

I’m willing to buy into the argument that a little more physical interaction would heighten my emotional appreciation of a movie, but I just can’t help feeling it’s the premise of a corny but terrifying episode of The Outer Limits? [IEEE Spectrum]

Gaming blog Joystiq, speaking with Novint CEO Tom Anderson, reports that the haptics gaming device will be on consoles by the end of 2009 if he has anything to do with it. While a far cry from “the Novint Falcon haptics gaming device is definitely coming to consoles this winter,” the declaration had moxie, dammit, and that’s good enough for me.

The holdup is, unsurprisingly, the console manufacturers (Wild guess: Likely just MS and Sony), who were wary of supporting the device until a good number of developers embraced the technology. From Anderson’s viewpoint, that support has materialized, somewhere, and companies are now “piling on” the Falcon.

So, a console version is more likely now than it was in September, but it’s still a ways from being a done deal. [Joystiq]

This tactile display enables tactile feedback superimposed over 3D graphics projected in free space, which provides more intuitive handling of 3D “touchable” graphics. For example, users could touch Princess Leia projected in the air.

…

Again:

This tactile display enables tactile feedback superimposed over 3D graphics projected in free space, which provides more intuitive handling of 3D “touchable” graphics. For example, users could touch Princess Leia projected in the air.

…

Yes. Users can touch Princess Leia projected in the air. In her metal bikini. Oiled. OK, that’s just me, but you get the idea.

How is this force field produced? The Airborne Ultrasound Tactile Display uses multiple ultrasound transducers to project waves into the air. Without gloves or attachments, and without risk of penetration in the body, the device takes advantage of a nonlinear ultrasound phenomena called acoustic radiation pressure. This allows for the creation of spatial shapes of acoustic ultrasound radiation pressure, which is what gives you the sensation of touching Princess Leia’s breasts for real, even feeling the nature of the material: The authors of the device say that eventually you will be able to “probe the surface of an object to measure the visc-oelastic properties of the object from a distant point.” Paraphrasing Hank Moody, I think I got my manhood back and got hungry at the same time.

This version produces a 3D force field “that is sufficient for handling virtual objects with hands. The force field designed to be effective within a 30 cm3 region, with 10 gf, 1 kHz bandwidth, and 1cm spatial resolution.” Holodeck, here we go. [University of Tokyo]

Teases for hologram technology are commonplace nowadays, but it is usually taken for granted that the projected images will provide no haptic feedback. Though the researchers have said little about integration with other projection systems, the possibility of a tactile hologram now doesn’t seem totally out of the question. There’s a major catch, though: the virtual objects won’t be provide much resistance or seem very “hard,” because at high enough levels the aurally imperceptible ultrasound will destroy your eardrums. Even considering the limitations, my hope remains: that we may soon be able to (very delicately) slap people though a webcam. [BBC]