How do we disrupt this idea to bring about a mergence of environment+ technology?

Imagine a glove that emits a semi-spherical forcefield, sort of like a superhero gadget. The forcefield is about a foot in diameter and is about a 3 inch thick augmented reality layer containing real-time images from your surroundings. You can ‘touch’ this augmented reality 3D ‘relief’ and feel not only the shapes, but also variations of temperature, differing frequencies of vibrations. So what are you touching? It feels sort of like the parthenon marbles or those sculptural reliefs you see on the walls of the Angkor Wat, except, the virtual ‘sculpture’ is ‘moving’, communicating to you via its own symbology the real-time environment/scene around you. As its spherical, you can also feel around the ceiling and floor. You have as much information communicated to you about your environment as if you are looking at it, but you are feeling it. You can even feel your own location in the scene. After a few weeks you learn to thallocentrically navigate your environment using this screen, its sort of like a video game, the information is coded in symbols and textures, its not ‘real’, but it is precise, and reduces the ‘need’ to look where you are going, your gloved hand does the driving leaving you free to relax in the soundscape, olfactoryscape, with a profound, ‘tactile-self’-reliance.

I was working on my own today, but following the example of wayfindr themselves, I am putting forth my own call to action, or call to design.

I have used differing textures, and colours, to represent things such as speed of travel, distance, nature of object, speed of vibration.

But at this stage I am willing to hear from you how you best think a person’s environment can mapped out with tactility alone, and what symbols and language this technology would need to speak in order to be most accessible, enjoyable and user friendly.

I would like to conclude by briefly convey the spirit of the existing research which I have combined in a creative way to produce this product. I will focus on some that most impacted the directions I took.

Haptic technology exists to help VIP ‘see’ sculptures in museums which they are not allowed to touch with their hands. There’s technology that translates colours into non visual experiences such as sound, and temperature. There’s dynamic 3D interfaces such as braille reading pads which rely on electromagnetism. Theres a big push for affordable haptic technology, such as gloves and shoes. The shoes are already on the RBS’s radar. There is MIT research on a product designed for moon walking where the astronaut has to detect obstacles without being able to move their neck around and see them. There is gestural monitoring for example when a hard of hearing person makes hand signs and this translates to speech for a VIP to hear.

And it almost goes without saying there is a tonne of useful existing research, so what I have detailed and presented is a proposal, a concept, a design, to bring it all together and find a way to collaborate.