Wireless glove adds touch to VR video games

While Oculus, Valve, Samsung and HTC are all looking to captialize on the resurgence of VR, their solutions all focus on what we can see and hear. That's more than enough to immerse you in a virtual world, but what if you want to interact with the objects within them? Some companies have already taken on the challenge, but researchers at RICE University have created a new haptic glove that uses air to inflate bladders underneath your fingers to offer a real sense of touch.

Although it's still in early development, the Hands Omni glove is intended for gamers. In fact, Virtuix, the company behind the crazy Virtuix Omni virtual reality treadmill, is sponsoring the project with a view to making it a widely available gaming peripheral. These agreements mean its developers can't reveal exactly how the wireless glove works, but its developers are hopeful that developers will be able to implement support for it into games and other VR projects in the future.