from Hacker News

Helen Keller and the Glove That Couldn't Hear

by joe_bleau on 9/22/14, 1:35 AM with 2 comments

• by DavidAdams on 9/22/14, 4:32 AM

  The Apple Watch promises haptic feedback to use in, for example, turn-by-turn navigation. I doubt that anything that crude could come close to achieving what the "hearing glove" inventors are/were after, but I'd be interested to see whether, upon putting such capabilities on the wrists of so many people, and opening up access to them for countless app developers, whether we might be able to come up with some extremely interesting cybernetic user experiences, both for hearing or sight-disabled people and for those will their full senses who could benefit from the various kinds of augmented reality that's on offer.

  I recall reading about a guy who wore a device that gave him an indication of his North south east west orientation through a vibration, and how he used that to gain a instinctive sense of his place, perhaps similar to how pigeons experience the world. I think that's only scratching the surface of cybernetic potential that we could be unlocking by making even simple haptic feedback devices like the Apple watch widely available.

• by Dylan16807 on 9/22/14, 5:46 AM

  Well that's an unsatisfying ending. No mention of trying to use larger areas, or more sensitive areas like the tongue, just "isn't sensitive enough".