TACTICAL HAPTICS DEMONSTRATES NEXT GENERATION REACTIVE GRIP™ HAPTIC VIRTUAL REALITY CONTROLLER AT GDC 2014

Reactive Grip™ touch feedback blows rumble away and allows gamers to experience tangible physical resistance through a motion controller interface that’s primed for the next generation of games and VR!

Salt Lake City, Utah – March 14, 2014 – Tactical Haptics has refined its unique brand of touch feedback and will be showing off its new motion controllers at the 2014 Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, California. The technology startup originally debuted their Reactive Grip™ haptic controller a year ago at GDC and has since made great strides in improving the product design, ergonomics, and quality of touch feedback, bringing the company one step closer to integrating Reactive Grip touch feedback into your favorite shooters, RPGs, and virtual reality experiences.

Tactical Haptics is aspiring to the vision of game maker Valve and head-mounted display (HMD) startup Oculus VR, who both predict that virtual reality and video games will combine to create a powerful sense of presence in gaming. While considerable attention and resources are being focused on creating high fidelity HMDs and tracking solutions that are affordable to consumers, true immersion must engage all of the senses and progress toward providing realistic touch feedback has largely been ignored. Reactive Grip is poised to fill this gap, as it can provide more realistic touch feedback than tradition rumble feedback, yet does not limit the gamer to interact at a desk as required by past force feedback devices like the Novint Falcon. The Reactive Grip provides flexible options for both casual seated play as well as full motion controlled virtual reality interactions.

Reactive Grip touch feedback works by mimicking the friction and forces that we feel in the real world while holding an object or touching a surface. This is accomplished by tracking the movements of the player’s hand and actuating small sliding plates on the surface of the controller to recreate the in-hand friction and shear forces you’d expect during physical interaction. This allows gamers to feel the impact of a sword, the tug of a fish on the line, or the kickback of a gun in their favorite shooter. It is called Reactive Grip feedback because the controller reacts to a player’s actions in the virtual world.

To experience this new technology before it is available for sale, visit booth #335 (part of the University of Utah’s booth) in the south expo hall at the 2014 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Calif., March 19-21.

The company is currently raising capital to make their haptic game controllers available to developers and VR enthusiasts. To bring the most realistic touch feedback to your games, developers may contact us at developer@tacticalhaptics.com.

For additional assets, including high resolution images of the Reactive Grip game controllers, please visit: http://tacticalhaptics.com/pressImages/GDC2014/

For more information on Reactive Grip touch feedback, please visit: http://tacticalhaptics.com/media

Related Links:

Official Website: http://tacticalhaptics.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tacticalhaptics

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tacticalhaptics

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TacticalHaptics/videos

About Tactical Haptics

Tactical Haptics was founded by Professor William Provancher in 2013. The objective of this company is to commercialize Reactive Grip touch feedback, which was developed in Dr. Provancher’s University of Utah Laboratory, the Haptics and Embedded Mechatronics Lab. The company’s initial focus is on commercializing the use of Reactive Grip touch feedback in the fields of virtual reality, augmented reality, and video games. Reactive Grip touch feedback creates engaging physical interaction in virtual environments that significantly improves upon the realism of interactions compared to “rumble” vibration feedback. Future applications could include navigation aids for the blind, minimally invasive surgery, and upper limb rehabilitation.

Media Contact:

William Provancher

E: press_at_tacticalhaptics_dot_com

Visit Tactical Haptics in Booth 335 in the South Expo Hall at GDC.