Odds are you’ve seen one Star Trek series or another. Odds are you know what a holodeck is. Odds are you probably wondered why they didn’t have incredible porn sims in those holodecks (other than the reason that Star Trek was written a very clean, sterile show). Well, that kind of future is coming sooner than you think, thanks to Japanese photonics researchers.From the article:

Whether that means replicators and holodecks are slated to hit the market in the next few decades remains to be seen, however don’t get too excited about these “physical” images: they won’t provide textures or other familiar sensations. In fact, when a user passes a hand through the hologram, the only sensation they will provide is pressure. This is achieved by sending ultrasonic waves through the image.

According to Reuters, the Japanese scientists are actually using Nintendo’s Wii remote to track the human’s hand, mounted firmly above the hologram display area. So far, they’ve only tested simple holographic objects, however there are plans to use the technology in a more practical application such as a hospital, producing a virtual switch in an environment where contamination by touch can cause problems.

So for right now, it’s just simple holographic objects supported by ultrasonic wave projectors that create a sensation of pressure and not full-on physical resistance and actual applicable force. Within a decade though, with refinement of the ultrasonic resistance, virtual FPS games could be very doable. The kind of scenario that could be provided by ultrasonically supported walls and ultrasonic “bullets” with soft but very tangible impacts would provide realism beyond just gaming applications in fact. I see militaries eyeing this technology quite closely.

Pr0n probably won’t be eyeing this until the precision application of those ultrasonic waves gets improved by a couple of orders of magnitude. Don’t hold your breath and stick that back in your pants, because there’ll be no virtual pr0n fantasies for the average consumer anytime soon. 😛

See the original article here.