Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Compatibility added for Tactile Mobile phone

Greetings TactileWare users!

This is to inform you that iFeelPixel beta 1.0.0 (Official version) is available at: www.ifeelpixel.com/download/

If your version is outdated, please update to the most current version.

A full list of changes in this version can be found at: http://www.ifeelpixel.com/download/whatsnew10.htm


What's new in this version?

1. New Features

- Tactile Mobile: Creates Tactile effects for your mobile phone with VibeTonz Technology. To date, more than 65 million handsets with Immersion's high-fidelity, programmable haptics technology have shipped around the world.

iFeelPixel software lets mobile phone users design their own haptic effects to personalize touch feedback. Touch feedback makes the mobile phone user experience more sensory, intuitive, useful, fun and allows users to feel a computer screen anywhere. (v.1.0.0).

From its "Tactile Mobile" option, iFeelPixel lets users create personalized haptic effects through a graphical user interface based on the conventions of Immersion's VibeTonz(R) Studio authoring tool for developers. Users can modify wave shape, duration, and intensity to create distinctive vibrational patterns. These creations let users personalize their phone with unique haptic experiences.

- New multimodal file menubar

I. Visual Force Feedback (To enable pseudo-haptic effects with a simple mouse)

II. Haptic feedback is divided into 4 parts:
1. Rumble Feedback (To enable Rumble effects for Nintendo Wiimote).
2. Vibro-Tactile Feedback (To enable Vibro-Tactile effects for Tactile Mobiles).
3. Tactile Feedback (To enable Tactile effects for TouchSense devices).
4. Force Feedback (To enable force effects for Novint Falcon).

The Novint Falcon is an entirely new type of game controller. Replacing your mouse or joystick, the Falcon is, essentially, a small robot that lets you experience true virtual touch unlike any controller in history.

III. Auditory Feedback is divided into 3 parts:
1. Sound Card Feedback
2. Internal Speakers
3. Narrator Voices

Multi-modal feedback including the sensation of touch proved to significantly increase speed and reduce error rates.


2. Updated Options

- Edge Detection: Automatic or Manual Periodic effect (v.1.0.0)

- Color Detection: Color Force (Novint Falcon) and Tactile Duration Slider added (v.1.0.0)


3. New Options

- Tactile Mobile Option (v.1.0.0)


4. Optimizations

- Visual Force Feedback (Pseudo-haptic developed in collaboration with INRIA) motion is much more precise than before (decimal precision). (v.1.0.0)

- Novint Falcon Algorithm optimized:

The force feedback is more consistent when "Mass" is selected. The others algorythms are based on the Grip speed value. If the speed is 0, there is no force feedback effect.

Automatic Force based on Mass Effect: mass is the quantity of inertia possessed by an object or the proportion between force and acceleration refered to in Newton's second law of Motion. Selection choices: mass, mass-damper, spring-mass-damper or mass-acceleration.The mass value is expressed in Kilogram (Default value is 2,5 Kilogram)


5. Others updates

- "Bug Report" updated for the Tactile Mobile (v.1.0.0)

- "Tactile Feedback" updated for Edge, line, corner, color detection (v.1.0.0)

- "Delete file settings" added (v.1.0.0)

- Visual Feedback renamed to "Visual Force Feedback" (v.1.0.0)

- "Clipboard viewer" moved to "clipboard window" (v.1.0.0)

- Volume Slider renamed to "Strength" slider (v.1.0.0)


6. Know issues

List of known issues in this version of iFeelPixel:

. Installation of Immersion VibeTonz Studio is required for tactile mobile users (we are working with Immersion Corporation to offer an alternative solution). (v.1.0.0)

See USB Advanced Network Functionality for Mobile Device Center/ActiveSync troobleshootings.

Note: Mobile Device Center (Vista) or ActiveSync (XP) should be already installed and configured on your machine.


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Best Regards,
iFeelPixel Association

Interactive Accessibility via Haptic Technology
http://www.ifeelpixel.com/