My new job as a “Japan researcher” gives me a lot of fringe benefits, like free subscriptions to the Economist, Businessweek, Asahi and Nikkei daily newspapers, and Nikkei Net Interactive, a web service that provides translated Nikkei articles and some features like Japanese company profiles. I’m often unsure of what to do with the information — does passing along pay articles that I get from work constitute a violation of licensing agreements? Well, I’m sure a partial copy-paste here and there couldn’t hurt.
So it is with that in mind that I bring you this article. Something tells me this is a lot more realistic than Japan’s “Atom Project” (to create a robot with all the humanity of a 5-year-old boy by 2040 or so), and also probably a lot more fun.
Govt To Lead Effort To Realize Virtual Reality TV By 2020
TOKYO (Nikkei)–The Communications Ministry will establish an industry-academia-government R&D organization this year that will work to commercialize VR (virtual reality) television by 2020.
VR TV will enable images to be seen in 3-D from any angle at a quality equivalent to that offered by high-definition TVs, in addition to allowing viewers to feel and smell the objects they are watching.
The government hopes that by supporting the project, it can help Japan maintain its technological edge.
When these features are used on home shopping programs, for example, viewers will be able to examine products by seeing them from various angles and feeling them. VR TV technology will also likely be used in telemedicine and other fields.
Recreating tactile sensations and odors is expected to be the biggest hurdle to commercialization.
To simulate the sensation of touch, researchers are considering using means including ultrasound, electrical stimulation and wind pressure. For smells, the development of a device that mixes natural aromatic essences to recreate particular scents will likely be given a major focus.