Haptics Club

Jake Rubin is the Founder & CEO at HaptX. HaptX invents and builds wearable technology that simulates touch with unprecedented realism, enabling natural haptic interaction in virtual reality and robotics. The multidisciplinary HaptX team includes mechanical, software, electrical, and biomedical engineers and human-machine interaction experts. We're pioneering a new approach to haptics to crack the toughest problems in human-machine interaction. Their mission is to bring lifelike touch to digital experiences, and hope to one day make reality indesqutinsable from virtual. For more information about HaptX, visit their official website

Femke van Beek works as a postdoc with Irene Kuling, in the Dynamics and Control Group of the Department of Mechnical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). Her current project is part of the 4TU Soft Robots Program, in which soft robots are developed by taking inspiration from nature, like octopus arms and elephant trunks. She uses these soft robots for creating haptic feedback, i.e. touch feedback, in Virtual Reality and tele-operation applications. By using these novel soft haptic feedback displays, she investigates which haptic stimuli are vital to unlock more intuitive interactions with simulated systems. Femke holds an MSc in sensory biology and biomechanics from Wageningen University, after which she changed her focus from animals to humans in her PhD. In her project, she worked on haptic perception for tele-operation applications, under the supervision of Astrid Kappers and Wouter Bergmann Tiest at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Next, she moved to Seattle for a postdoc at Oculus Research/Facebook Reality Labs, where she worked on using haptics together with visuals and sound to create tangible, interactable objects in Virtual and Augmented Reality. After 5 years of research in this industry setting, she returned to the Netherlands and to academia at the TU/e. For more information about Femke, visit the TU/E official website.

David Resnick is involved with The Walt Disney Company as a Senior Product Design Manager, focusing on Interactive & Gaming for Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+. He is a multisensory creator, involved in developing and creating immersive, interactive and engaging products for a broad audience across Disney's streaming platforms. David is also a Mentor, Speaker, and Workshop Leader specializing in Human-Computer Interaction, Design Thinking, and Empathy through Technology, including at various institutions including UC Irvine, UCLA, TEDxCulverCity, and the National Stuttering Association. To learn more about David, visit his Linkedin.

Tune in as we interview David Parisi, Dibner Chair at NYU Tandon, the Editor at ROMchip Journal, and author of renowned haptics book "Archaeologies of Touch: Interfacing with Haptics from Electricity to Computing." In this episode we talk about the current state of haptics in academia, and David's latest theory - technohaptic real. As one of the most outspoken experts in the industry, you won't want to miss this. Learn more about David at https://engineering.nyu.edu/faculty/david-parisi

Guess who's back? Simon Frübis returns, this time to discuss his work as an XR interaction designer at Doublepoint (formerly known as Port 6). Doublepoint is recognized for its WowMouse app, which is now compatible with Google Pixel Watch 2. Simon has over six years of expertise in interaction design, digital marketing, and entrepreneurship, coupled with more than three years of experience as a VR/AR prototyper utilizing MRTK, Interaction SDK, and Unity.  Join us for an insightful interview with Simon as we explore the latest advancements in UX and interactive technology, as well as the future landscape of wearables and haptics. For more information about Simon and Doublepoint, visit their website at https://www.doublepoint.com.

Shan-Yuan Teng 鄧善元, a PhD candidate in Computer Science at the University of Chicago under Prof. Pedro Lopes, focuses on developing the next generation of haptic interfaces for enhanced mobility and availability, similar to mobile phones and wearables. With 14 papers published in top HCI conferences like ACM CHI & UIST, including two Best Paper Awards and four Honorable Mentions, Shan-Yuan's contributions are notable in the field. This interview with Shan-Yuan will discuss his innovative projects, including the collection of kinetic energy from VR users and the development of a foldable haptic actuator, along with his perspectives on the evolution of haptic technology. For additional information about Shan-Yuan, visit their website at https://tengshanyuan.info.

Tune in as we interview Philipp Sachs, COO of Xeeltech. XeelTech is a company that focuses on the development of haptic and adaptive damping technologies. The company offers smart rotary haptic actuators with programmable feedback, designed to enhance user interaction with products, and adaptive damping systems. This interview with Philipp Sachs will provide insights into XeelTech's vision for the future of haptic technology and its role as a founding member of the Haptics Alliance. For additional information about XeelTech, visit their website at https://www.xeeltech.com/hapticore

Join Haptics Club for a live session featuring Jacob Segil, CEO of Afference. Afference specializes in the development of The Phantom, a haptic glove designed to deliver feedback with precise finger-level detail through direct interaction with the nervous system. Founded by neural engineering specialists, the company draws upon a wealth of research in neural interfaces to enhance digital interaction experiences. This interview with CEO Jacob Segil will offer a deeper understanding of Afference's technology and its innovative contributions to the field. For additional information about Afference, visit their website at https://www.afference.io/.

Manuel has developed haptic technologies for the medical, automotive, gaming, XR, and mobility industries. His work has led him to be named as an inventor in over 250 US granted and pending patents in the areas of sensing, actuation, and control. Manu works at Innovobot Labs as Chief Scientist, responsible for developing their Human Machine Interface (HMI) Lab, and was recently announced as the new President of The Haptics Industry Forum. For more information visit the Innovobot website.

Haptics Club is joined live with Craig Shultz and Joe Mullenbach of Fluid Reality, which recently showed its electroosmotic device that uses an electric field to create feedback. Craig is co-founder and CTO of Fluid Reality, a spinout commercializing his post doctoral work at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in the Future Interfaces Group. He's the inventor of Flat Panel Haptics and specializes in interactive embedded systems and haptic actuation. CEO of Fluid Reality Joe Mullenbach discusses how Fluid Reality created a miniature actuation platform that brings the power and flexibility of hydraulics to human scale devices. Contact info https://fluidreality.com - contact form at the bottom https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmullenbach/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigdshultz/ Articles https://www.fastcompany.com/90978057/this-groundbreaking-tech-could-finally-bring-a-sense-of-touch-to-virtual-reality https://www.popsci.com/technology/fluid-reality-haptic-glove/ https://gizmodo.com/carnegie-mellon-touchscreen-pop-up-buttons-1850377517

Dr. Ivan Poupyrev is an award-winning technology leader, scientist and designer working at the cutting edge of interactive technologies. Ivan was the Director of Engineering and Technical Projects Lead at the Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division where he focused on developing interaction technologies and products for future digital lifestyle. Prior to Google he was Principal Research Scientist at the Walt Disney Imagineering research division and at Sony Corporate Research laboratories in Tokyo. To learn more information about Ivan, visit his website http://www.ivanpoupyrev.com. Dr. Ivan Poupyrev is an award-winning technology leader, scientist and designer working at the cutting edge of interactive technologies. Ivan was the Director of Engineering and Technical Projects Lead at the Google's Advanced Technology and Projects (ATAP) division where he focused on developing interaction technologies and products for future digital lifestyle. Prior to Google he was Principal Research Scientist at the Walt Disney Imagineering research division and at Sony Corporate Research laboratories in Tokyo. To learn more information about Ivan, visit his website http://www.ivanpoupyrev.com.

Denny Unger serves as both the CEO and Chief Creative Officer of Cloudhead Games, a company established in 2012. Cloudhead Games has made its mark in the virtual reality (VR) industry by releasing four notable VR titles, including Pistol Whip, Valve Aperture Hand Labs, Call of the Starseed, and Heart of the Emberstone. Their innovative approach to VR has led to the adoption of two widely recognized movement standards: VR Comfort Mode/Snap Turns and Blink Teleportation. Collaborating closely with leading VR hardware companies such as META, Valve, Sony, and HTC, Cloudhead Games continues to push the boundaries of VR technology, contributing to its evolution and providing both information and entertainment to the VR community. “Gains pushing current VR tech/constraints are diminishing. Meaningful VR "2.0" is about low-friction body tracking & haptics.” - Denny on Twitter/X.

Aadeel is the CEO and founder of the bionics company PSYONIC. PSYONIC is pioneering bionic prosthetics and making them accessible to more people than ever before as the “Finally, a bionic hand that can actually feel.” Aadeel was named one of MIT Technology Review's 35 Innovators Under 35 and was featured in Newsweek's “America's 50 Greatest Disruptors: Visionaries Who Are Changing the World. Learn more about Psyonic on their website.

Season finale before the summer stop! We discuss the latest haptics innovation happened in the market, and why we believe they are worth to discuss. Have a good listen!

Peter A. Botticelli joined SynTouch as Director of Customer Solutions with a strong background in custom robotics and control systems. Peter studied electrical engineering at Worchester Polytechnic Institute and the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He worked in development as a robotics engineer at Barrett Technology Inc. and UniFirst Corporation. At SynTouch, Peter develops state-of-the art machine sensing technology, working with leaders in various industries including consumer electronics, automotive, textiles, and consumer goods to provide novel applications for machine touch. Learn more about SynTouch on their website.

Hong Z. Tan is a renowned haptics scientist at Google, known for her research on perception-based haptic interfaces. With a background in Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University and MIT, respectively, Hong has also had extensive industry experience, including a stint at Microsoft Research Asia. She is a Fellow of IEEE for her contributions to wearable haptics and holds concurrent appointments at Purdue University in the fields of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Psychological Sciences. Learn more about Haptics Club Check out our website https://thehapticsclub.com Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/hapticsclub Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/7er4WCd... Listen on Apple Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/fr/podcast... Listen on Google Podcast https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...

We had this sparkling episode about VR gloves and haptics in VR with Contact CI co-founder Craig Douglass. Contact CI is developing a different type of force feedback based on bio-inspired control methods of resistive force feedback. Great discussion about Haptics and VR in general worth a listen!

In this episode we sit down with Danny Grant, technology visionary who has a proven record of innovation and a passion for building a better future and for the past 20 years have led product innovation at Immersion Corp. Now a funding partner at Innovobot Resonance Ventures. We talk about the innovation process for the DualSense haptics, the entrepreneurship process finally bringing it to the market, and how to judge if a haptics product will "make the cut" and be successful.

The Xprize competition is one of the institution pushing the boundaries of human knowledge through technology breakthrough. The ANA-AVATAR Xprize competition looked to share a glimpse of what the future of telerobotic and telepresence could be. We share this episode with Christian Lenz and Max Schwarz form the Nimbro team of Bonn University winner of the ANA-AVATAR Xprize. It is a great conversation where good engineering and design choices mix with human factors and innovation development, and a bit of haptics. Xprize: https://www.xprize.org/ ⁠Bonn Univeristy:⁠ https://www.ais.uni-bonn.de/ ⁠Nimbro Team: https://nimbro.net/AVATAR/⁠ ⁠Finals Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmESa2Olq4c&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fnimbro.net%2F&feature=emb_imp_woyt⁠

Pedro is Assistant Professor at University of Chicago and Lead of the Human Computer Integration Lab in the Department of Computer Science. He's published over 30+ papers at ACM CHI & UIST. His work has been captured by MIT Technology Review, Discovery Channel, Wired, and New York Times. Learn more at Plopes.org.

Ben is the reference in the XR world leading the Road to VR since 2012. He has a unique insight of the value of haptics for XR experiences, and how to build a great haptics peripherals and interfaces. Road to VR website 5 most interesting haptics technologies in the last five years

We sit down in this episode with Tom Carter, co-founder, former CTO, and now CEO of Ultraleap. Ultraleap raised their series D in 2021 of $82 millions for their hand tracking, and mid-air haptic technology. We will chat around the entrepreneurial and technological story of Ultraleap, from Ultrahaptics first, the Leap Motion acquisition later and the fusion of the two companies projecting into to future. One of the rare successful haptic ventures. Longer chat, totally worth it !

Our classic CES special sharing and discussing haptics news (the one we were able to catch in the maelstrom). A lot of VR gloves, in many ways or forms. A lot of XR. Haptics trackpad, controllers, and in car haptics. Better consumed as video. 

In this episode we will touch all the future of haptics prediction of our speakers in the past 33 episodes with the help of Dave Parisi, the reference for haptics media studies. The result are surprising and unexpected. They paint a grounded and clear view of the next five years for the haptics market. Best consumed as a video!

Oliver does haptics since he was a teenager, and it shows it. He is now assistant professor of human computer interaction at Waterloo University. He specializes in HX, a short form of Haptics Experience. We will talk about design, design tools, multisensory experiences and lifelong learnings in this great episode. For more information, visit Oliver Schneider's profile on the University of Waterloo's website and his official website Oliverschneider.ca.

In this episode we will discuss of the value, opportunities, and use cases of wideband vibrotactile technologies with  Rafal Pijewski, CTO of Actronika, a company specialized in transparent wideband actuators, and Kyle Skippon, lead engineer from Titan Haptics, a company that develops HD haptic motors based on Linear Magnetic Ram technology. We touch on topics like haptics design, control, tradeoffs and opportunities for the current and future market.

Ed is one of the cornerstone figures of the haptics ecosystem, both in Academia and Entrepreneurships with multiple companies developed over the years. He holds the Breed Senior Professorship of Design at Northwestern University and Professorship of Mechanical Engineering. We will discuss of lifelong learning, how to approach a research career in Haptics, and what to think about when developing a Haptics company. Enjoy!

We interview Sara Price and Carey Jewitt from university College of London on digital touch communication. We discuss the results of the long and ambitious in Touch project investigating digital touch from a sociological and human centered perspective. Fantastic conversation! Manifesto of Digital Social Touch: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomp.2021.754050/full In Touch project website: https://in-touch-digital.com/

Season 3 of Haptics Club is here! For the first episode of the season #29, we have special guest Bob Crockett of HaptX, best known for their haptic gloves for virtual reality and robotics. We cover the challenges of hardware development in the emerging fields of VR and AR, and the entrepreneurial side of bringing complex technology to market. Have you heard the origin story of HaptX? This is a truly inspiring story you don't want to miss. For more information about HaptX, visit https://haptx.com.

Second Season Finale! A retrospective of the topics shared in the last 20 episodes, and a secret announcement! Don't miss it

HC # 27 is an event fully dedicated to Haptics mixed with musical experiences on the creation, shared play, and listening side. We have Samantha Melnyk from Korg the famous digital musical instrument creators, and Luca Turchet, from Trento University. It is a wonderful conversation on the interplay of haptics and music, and how the tactile sense can increase and expand the experience of the listener and the player. For more information about Samantha and Korg, visit https://korg.berlin/. For more information about Luca and University of Trento visit http://www.lucaturchet.it/

HC # 26 Haptic Feedback in Marketing & E-commerce with Dr. Margot Racat. Marketing UX & haptic researcher in computer-mediated consumption at IDRAC Business School Lyon. https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=uvOLS3gAAAAJ&hl=en https://www.ecoles-idrac.com/campus/lyon

Adult Haptics Ecosystem with Kyle Machulis, better known as qDot, founder and CEO of Nonpolynomail. Fantastic conversation spanning from the tremendous growth of the adult haptics ecosystem, the challenges of defining your target technology map, and the impacts of remote agency on your personal space. A must listen. https://nonpolynomial.com

HC #24 will be covering the process that goes through designing, prototyping & evaluating haptic interactions. Featuring Thomas Müller founder of Hapticlabs.io. https://www.hapticlabs.io

HC#23 will feature Matt Tullis, the VP of XR, at Ultraleap. Ultraleap is a leader in hand tracking and mid-air haptic technologies. We talk in the episode about the current future evolution of Ultraleap technologies, developer ecosystem, Open XR, and the future of Haptics. www.ultraleap.com

HC#22 will dive into one haptics market rarely talked about. Haptics for movie experiences. We will have on stage Robert Desautels, CTO of D-box. D-box built a growing business for 20 years supplying movie theatres and high-end home installation with high fidelity haptics chair and have a full fledge end-to-end haptics design and distribution studio to “haptify” the latest movie release. https://www.d-box.com/en

For HC21 we have the XR haptics, implementation and design guidelines book presentations authored by Chris Ullrich from Immersion, Rafal Pijewsky from Actronika, and our crew members Gijs den Butter from Senseglove and Eric Vezzoli from Interhaptics. Book link: https://hapticsif.org/xr-haptics-book/ The authors interviewed world-leading experts in haptics to solidify their experience on the market to deliver a practical implementation guideline for XR implementers and product managers evaluating haptics for their product. The book includes tons of original illustrations and content, use cases, implementation guides, tips, and resources. Among the experts interviewed and sharing content: Vincent Hayward from Isir and Actronika Ed Colgate from Northwestern University Allison Okamura from Stanford Jess O'brian from Meta Reality Labs Margot Racat from Idrac Oliver Schneider from the University of Waterloo David Birnbaum from Creative Foresight William Frier from Ultraleap Joe Michaels from Haptix Daniel Shor from Contaxtual Labs

In this event, we will talk about the quantification of haptics with Elisa Santella from Grewus. The ability to deliver design guidelines for the implementation of Haptics is of fundamental importance to reduce development costs for haptics products. We will talk about the characteristics and perks of the quantification framework developed for the automotive sector.

For Haptics Club #19, we're hosting guest speaker Antoine Weill-Duflos, Director of Research and Product Integration at Haply Robotics. He'll be discussing how his team is building haptic devices for medical simulation. And how they are working to facilitate access to force feedback devices and haptics in general, and how knowledge of haptic perception and illusion can play a role. Event #19 will be hosted by the haptics crew Manu .Vision, Eric Vezzoli, Gijs DenButter, Irina Tripapina, Ashley Huffman, and Sarah Alkibsy. SOCIAL https://twitter.com/ntoineWD https://antoine.weill-duflos.fr/en/ https://www.haply.co/

Vincent Hayward has more than 30 years of experience in haptics and had major contribution in haptics control, perception, algorithms, and design. A must listen. Video recording of the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHkjMZPcdpw Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_Hayward Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=YWv1lIkAAAAJ&hl=en Academie de Sciences: https://www.academie-sciences.fr/fr/Liste-des-membres-de-l-Academie-des-sciences-/-H/vincent-hayward.html

Chris Ullrich was in a privileged position over the past 20 years in the haptics innovation space. Being the CTO of Immersion, the major technological player in the haptics space, he "saw it all". He is with us for this landmark episode. We talked about many different topics like technology strategy, IP, business models, T-shirts, user experience, scaling haptics, failed predictions, future of haptics, and much more. Subscribe to our newsletter here to stay updated with the next events! https://www.getrevue.co/profile/hapticsclub As usual, with your trusted crew: Ashley Huffman, Manuel Sainsily, Eric Vezzoli, Gijs den Butter, Sarah Alkibsy, Irina Tripapina.

HC #16 with Hasti Sefi, Hannah Elbaggari, and Samantha Melnyk of the learn haptics project We will touch a lot of important aspects of the relation between haptics industry and academia, discovering haptics, partnership, and how to create compelling haptics experiences. Find out more on the website https://www.learnhaptics.org/

HC#15 with Ranjini Raghuveer, former Immersion Corporation in charge of product management for automotive haptics. We will talk about product constraints, user experience, and needs for the automotive market. Show Notes: Trends in automotive haptics: https://www.immersion.com/automotive-haptics-trends-and-perspectives/ HC#2 with Filip Aleksandrow: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5p9fc56bh2PBtFNvwXbXNF?si=H0OvxUw3RJGQHMLK0plEpg

We discuss high definition haptics, the implications on consumer technology and user experiences with Dave Birnbaum. Dave has over 10 years of background in haptics design, UX, IP, and ethics. He's currently the President of the Haptics Industry Forum and host of INIT podcast. This event will be co-hosted by Dave Parisi, Associate Professor at College of Charleston and author of Archaeologies of Touch. Learn more about Dave Birnbaum: ~ Website: https://davebirnbaum.com ~ Podcast: https://podcast.davebirnbaum.com ~ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmbirnbaum ~ Haptics Industry Forum: https://hapticsif.org See less

We will talk about Chemical Haptics with Jasmine Lu and Jas Brooks of the Human-Computer Integration Lab of the University of Chicago. This is a new type of haptic device that works by delivering chemicals to the skin. In turn, the user's skin reacts and internally creates haptic sensations. Explainer post - https://medium.com/acm-uist/achieving-new-skin-sensations-with-chemical-haptics-78c9bb03dd87 Paper - https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3472749.3474747 Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OTi4xfQg3U With your trusted crew: Eric Vezzoli Ashley Huffman Manuel Sainsily Gijs den Butter Irina Tripapina Sarah Alkibsy

Stay updated with the next Haptics Club events! Yasemin is Assistant Professor in Cognitive Robotics at Delft university with an interest in haptic perception and a strong expertise in Haptics Textures. We will talk about tactile interfaces, tactile perception, and robotics. Personal website from Yasemin https://yaseminvardar.com/

Stay updated with the next Haptics Club events! With a decade of industry experience, Dan blends art, design, engineering, and human perception to create compelling products and experiences that utilize cutaneous and kinesthetic feedback to help users better experience the world around them. Currently, at LoveHoneyGroup, a global leader in sexual wellness technology, Dan runs R&D projects blending vibration and technological innovation. He's also a co-founder of the VibeResearch Lab at the Delft University of Technology, focused on affective touch in wearable and whole-body experiences, in addition to his teacher of practice role specializing in Design Engineering and Interaction Design. He's also guest lectured at FH Salzburg, and Parsons School of Design | The New School. Prior to these roles, he was the Director of Haptics + R&D at SenseGlove, a VR/AR wearables company in Delft Netherlands.

Stay updated with the next Haptics Club events! For Haptics Club event #10, we're hosting David Eagleman, Stanford Neuroscientist, author of LIVEWIRED, and CEO of Neosensory and BrainCheck. He'll be discussing how our sense of touch plays a fundamental role in technology and the future of senses. Learn more: • https://twitter.com/davideagleman • Eagleman.com • https://twitter.com/Neosensory • https://neosensory.com • https://twitter.com/BrainCheck • https://braincheck.com • David's most recent book "LIVEWIRED" (https://amzn.to/3zEXlRR) See less

Stay updated with the next Haptics Club events! Simon dedicated the last year to investigate how wideband wearable haptics and hand tracking can generate great experiences in VR during UI interactions. We will talk about the discoveries of his journey, how he used different tools to prototype experiences and what he learned during this process.

Stay updated with the next Haptics Club events! For Haptics Club #8, we're hosting guest speaker Hrafn Thorisson, CEO and Co-Founder of Aldin Dynamics, creator of cutting-edge virtual reality technologies and award-winning games like Waltz of the Wizard: Natural Magic. We'll be discussing how crucial haptics is in virtual reality and how optical hand-tracking suffers from the lack of haptics. https://www.aldin.io/waltzofthewizard/ https://www.oculus.com/experiences/quest/2280285932034855/?locale=en_US https://twitter.com/aldindynamics Brought to you by your trusted crew: Manuel Sainsily, Eric Vezzoli, Gijs Den Butter, Irina Tripapina, Ashley Huffman, Sarah Alkibsy

Stay updated with the next Haptics Club events! The open-source quest for touch in VR with Lucas De Bonet from VRLucid Lucas, well known in the field for his quest to create affordable DIY haptics gloves for Virtual Reality. Lucas is a freshman at MIT who built an incredible open community around his development of fully functional haptics and hand tracking glove for a few dollars. In this episode we will dig deeper into the challenges and discoveries of building from the ground up an open-source haptic device, and what he is planning to do next. Lucas Personal Page: https://beacons.page/lucas_vrtech Youtube Chanel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjWBEvwq3iNLXEdrGTR5S9A Brought to you by your trusted crew: Manuel Sainsily, Eric Vezzoli, Gijs DenButter, Irina Tripapina, Ashley Huffman, Sarah Alkibsy See less