Feel the real world and the virtual world at the same time
... Researchers from the University of Chicago have figured out a clever way around this problem. In a paper that will be presented at the 2023 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, or CHI 2023, (where it will also be honored with a best paper award), they demonstrate a wearable system that can generate tactile sensations across the bottom of your fingers and palm without any hardware getting in the way, by hacking into the nerves on the back of your hand instead.
This method depends on what’s called “referred sensation,” where stimulation of your body in one place gets felt in another place—it’s like when you accidentally bash your elbow against something but can feel tingling up through your fingers, because the signal has traveled along your nerves up through your hand. In some places, including in the fingers, referred sensation can be targeted with a reasonable amount of precision. With a signal electrode on the top of a finger and a ground electrode closer to the wrist, it’s possible to stimulate individual parts of each finger, creating 11 separately controllable tactile zones across five fingers and the palm. ...
See the full story here: https://spectrum.ieee.org/finger-haptics