Nanoport is all set to launch Titan Haptics—the new haptic division of the company as part of its endeavor to develop enable virtual buttons for touch feedback, or haptics, in smartphones.
Nanoport, the Toronto-based tech company, is a leading technology solution provider of today’s time. Titan Haptics, the newly formed division of Nanoport that will dedicatedly develop haptic technology for smartphones. As reported, it will use Nanoport’s proprietary technology known as Linear Magnetic Ram (LMR) to develop these touch feedback buttons. Utilizing the LMR technology, Titan Haptics will make small motors able to produce the tactile sensation of the surface of a smartphone, like the sides of the device. When you press the side, the motors will trigger the LMR and in turn, it will feel like pressing an actual phone button.
Haptics technology in VR
Haptics or touch feedback is one of the most difficult things to get right in VR games. For example, when you reload a gun in the virtual world, it lacks the desired realistic feel because that would require force feedback from the game controller. Titan Haptics is launched with this purpose in mind—to provide more efficient and true-to-life touch feedback for VR experiences, such as games and other applications. To achieve this feat, Titan Haptic will be reportedly licensing this technology in bundle along with motor licensing from another leading tech company Immersion. The latter is also a renowned technology service provider specializing in haptics technology.
Dedicated commercial program
Apart from Titan Haptics, Nanoport is also launching a dedicated commercial program along with a brand-new mobile actuator. The new program, informally titled Grenville, is a miniaturized component that can bring the benefits and features of the said LMR technology to more compact, smaller devices, such as smartphones, smartwatches, handheld games consoles, etc. They can also be used in VR headsets. Striker VR, the location-based entertainment company has acquired the license of the VR headset application of the said technology.
HD upgrade
Tom Szeto, Founder of Titan Haptics, said that the technology can be described as the HD upgrade in terms of touch feedback in mobile devices. He stated that touch is an integral factor to provide differentiated experiences to VR technology users. Not just for gaming, but it could play a key role in new uses cases as well. For example, he mentioned the cases of virtual buttons on smartphones and music systems.
Growth
As VR gaming continues to grow unprecedently, especially in the domains like metaverse and augmented reality, so does the development of haptic feedback. The features of this novel technology have reached a phenomenal height in just a few years and subsequently, has proved itself to be a unique differentiator in the competitive hardware market.
Spanning out
Nanoport started as standalone research and development laboratory. Now it is spanning out with Titan Haptics being established as a commercial business, of which Nanoport holds the largest share. Szeto believes that Titan is going to be the highest end of haptic technology, and hopes it would shape the future of virtual reality.
