xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) (08/24/90)
The subject line gives this little insight away! ;-) If you perfect the kinesthetic and touch feedback with devices that move/press the fingers/limbs, you have also (with perhaps a scaling of the power) provided a prosthetic device where control now comes from the computer in response to other inputs, rather than from sensors responding to the (say) finger's attempt to squeeze the "virtual tennis ball". This suggests both that prosthetic research may already provide control which could be rethought to become a ready made feedback device, and that the funding sources for prosthesis research (typically medical, military, and veterans agencies) might be approachable for grants to do feedback research, so long as both applications are kept in mind and reported in the results. Kent, the man from xanth. <xanthian@Zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <xanthian@well.sf.ca.us>