((PKG)) HIGH TECH AQUARIUM
((Banner: Nature and Technology))
((Reporter/Camera: Elizabeth Lee))
((Adapted by: Philip Alexiou))
((Map: Del Mar, California))
((NATS))
((Jerry Schubel, President, Aquarium of the Pacific))
This new wing is called Pacific Visions and the whole idea is
it focuses on the one animal that is putting all the other
animals on the planet at risk. So, it focuses on us. And
these big problems, they’re global in scope: climate change,
habitat destruction and deterioration.
((NATS))
((Jerry Schubel, President, Aquarium of the Pacific))
It's done with the use of technology and media to tell these
global stories and to get people involved. And we want also,
using technology, to make the wonder, the majesty, the
beauty of the world ocean and the importance of this story
accessible to all people.
((NATS))
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
This is a truly leading-edge experience in theater. There’s a
bunch of new technology in here, not just the screen itself
which is 180 degrees surround screen. There’s a 36-foot
(10 meter) projection disk at the bottom, which adds to that
sense of immersion.
((NATS))
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
So, visually you see all these effects surrounding you and
you feel somewhat completely immersed in that. And then,
plus there are a number of other effects. The seats will
rumble at appropriate times during the experience. There
are strobe light effects. There’s wind effects, smoke and fog
effects, and then our technology that also adds this haptic
effect, the sense of touch for the experience. And what
we’re targeting in particular, deaf and blind people, so when
they come in to experience the film, because they’re going to
be missing some parts of the film because they are deaf or
blind, and what we’re trying to do with the midair haptics is to
deliver that additional sense of touch, to sort of, fill in the
experience.
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
Ultrahaptics is the technology that enables you to feel things
in midair. You literally put out your hand in free space like
this, and we project sensations onto your hand using
ultrasounds. So, these are sound waves that you can't hear,
but we project them onto your hand, so you can literally feel
effects on your hand. You can feel shapes, control buttons,
3D objects and even experiences, which is more what we’re
doing here.
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
What’s actually happening, it is an array of ultrasonic
speakers in the device, and these are emitting ultrasound
waves at slightly different times, each of them, and they're
calculated to arrive at your hand at a focal point, at a single
point, that we can then scan across your hand, create
different shapes on your hand.
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
There’s a media computer that runs the device and then
that’s connected through wireless control to the show
management system.
((NATS))
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
And so, it’s synchronized with all the effects throughout the
movie. This is actually the first permanent installation in an
aquarium or museum or zoo in a film environment.
((NATS))
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
In the future, it will become a consumer device as well as the
size of the device scales down and the cost as well. And
then, you’ll start to see it over the next couple of years in
consumer devices, in the home, in the office, in the car as
well.
((NATS))
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
Applications will be around control of various aspects of the
car, whether it’s the windows or the media player or the
navigation systems. You put your hand out, you feel the
button come to you, and as you depress the button, you feel
it actuate and you feel this sense of pressing the button and
getting that feedback that you’ve actuated something,
whether it’s the playback on the audio or of a movie. We
want to put the pieces in place now by incorporating our
technology into the car, into the office, into the home, even
into medical environments. So that when those future
augmented reality or spatial computing glasses come out in
a large-scale way, then the haptics is already there in the
environment, people are familiar with it and we can tie into
that.
((NATS))
((Banner: Nature and Technology))
((Reporter/Camera: Elizabeth Lee))
((Adapted by: Philip Alexiou))
((Map: Del Mar, California))
((NATS))
((Jerry Schubel, President, Aquarium of the Pacific))
This new wing is called Pacific Visions and the whole idea is
it focuses on the one animal that is putting all the other
animals on the planet at risk. So, it focuses on us. And
these big problems, they’re global in scope: climate change,
habitat destruction and deterioration.
((NATS))
((Jerry Schubel, President, Aquarium of the Pacific))
It's done with the use of technology and media to tell these
global stories and to get people involved. And we want also,
using technology, to make the wonder, the majesty, the
beauty of the world ocean and the importance of this story
accessible to all people.
((NATS))
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
This is a truly leading-edge experience in theater. There’s a
bunch of new technology in here, not just the screen itself
which is 180 degrees surround screen. There’s a 36-foot
(10 meter) projection disk at the bottom, which adds to that
sense of immersion.
((NATS))
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
So, visually you see all these effects surrounding you and
you feel somewhat completely immersed in that. And then,
plus there are a number of other effects. The seats will
rumble at appropriate times during the experience. There
are strobe light effects. There’s wind effects, smoke and fog
effects, and then our technology that also adds this haptic
effect, the sense of touch for the experience. And what
we’re targeting in particular, deaf and blind people, so when
they come in to experience the film, because they’re going to
be missing some parts of the film because they are deaf or
blind, and what we’re trying to do with the midair haptics is to
deliver that additional sense of touch, to sort of, fill in the
experience.
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
Ultrahaptics is the technology that enables you to feel things
in midair. You literally put out your hand in free space like
this, and we project sensations onto your hand using
ultrasounds. So, these are sound waves that you can't hear,
but we project them onto your hand, so you can literally feel
effects on your hand. You can feel shapes, control buttons,
3D objects and even experiences, which is more what we’re
doing here.
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
What’s actually happening, it is an array of ultrasonic
speakers in the device, and these are emitting ultrasound
waves at slightly different times, each of them, and they're
calculated to arrive at your hand at a focal point, at a single
point, that we can then scan across your hand, create
different shapes on your hand.
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
There’s a media computer that runs the device and then
that’s connected through wireless control to the show
management system.
((NATS))
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
And so, it’s synchronized with all the effects throughout the
movie. This is actually the first permanent installation in an
aquarium or museum or zoo in a film environment.
((NATS))
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
In the future, it will become a consumer device as well as the
size of the device scales down and the cost as well. And
then, you’ll start to see it over the next couple of years in
consumer devices, in the home, in the office, in the car as
well.
((NATS))
((Alex Driskill-Smith, President, Ultrahaptics))
Applications will be around control of various aspects of the
car, whether it’s the windows or the media player or the
navigation systems. You put your hand out, you feel the
button come to you, and as you depress the button, you feel
it actuate and you feel this sense of pressing the button and
getting that feedback that you’ve actuated something,
whether it’s the playback on the audio or of a movie. We
want to put the pieces in place now by incorporating our
technology into the car, into the office, into the home, even
into medical environments. So that when those future
augmented reality or spatial computing glasses come out in
a large-scale way, then the haptics is already there in the
environment, people are familiar with it and we can tie into
that.
((NATS))
