Tactile Presence

While mobile communications and content can be highly personal, user experiences can feel lifeless, isolated and detached, with interactions reduced to unresponsive gestures on touchscreens. Immersion offers the new Tactile Presence API, which allows OEMs to enrich mobile experiences by conveying physical presence.

The Value of Haptics (Tactile Effects) in Mobile Communications

Communicating Physical Presence

The Tactile Presence solution provides an API for mobile communication applications to call low-power haptics, also known as tactile effects. By creating and transmitting tactile information between two mobile devices, Tactile Presence adds a sense of physical presence to interactive mobile experiences. Users can feel the remote actions of another through the application of dynamic tactile effects that capture and communicate emotive information, creating meaningful telepresence. As a result, a child and parent can be more connected in a video chat by feeling each other draw and playfully interact in a shared tactile space; friends can inject more feeling into SMS and chat by using LOL and other emoticons that can be physically felt; interactive gaming is made more intuitive as players can actually sense remote partner actions; and loved ones who are miles apart can feel more connected as their fingers touch while they share a phone call.

The Tactile Presence API is optimized to work with Immersion's TouchSense® 5000 embedded software for high definition (HD) haptics. The Tactile Presence solution transmits tactile information via mobile network or Wi-Fi.

Potential applications for Tactile Presence include:

• Augmenting voice calls with shared tactile space
• Video calls with interactive whiteboards
• Injecting chat applications with enhanced emoticons
• Interactive gaming