Feel your way through the new reality.

One of the biggest challenges in making virtual reality as compellingly immersive as, you know, ACTUAL reality, is being able to touch things in a digital world. If you've ever tried the Oculus Rift or Google Cardboard, you've probably experienced the disorienting feeling of trying to reach for something, only to realize you can't see your hands. Without hands, you can't touch stuff. Which sucks, and ruins the suspension of disbelief as completely as anything possibly can.

Seeing a giant whale in HTC Vive's giant blue whale underwater simulation is amazing, but you can't touch the whale's giant wet eyeball, so I don't know if you can actually count this experience as educational. We already knew that whales were really freaking big, right?

At PO-MO, we're super happy to follow the progress of haptic research (mostly in Asia, where physical interaction in VR isn't limited to educational experiences), and we dream of a future where we can all make our own worlds, including at least three of the five senses.

We're also following VR smelloscopes, but it turns out no one wants to smell stuff they can't smell.

Anyway, if you want to back a suit for full body haptic feedback, there's always this thing. But looking at the video, we're not quite convinced they have the feedback part down (unless making a bunch of LEDs light up makes you feel textures and physical contact - it hasn't worked for us yet).