Japan startup believes its cheap, light 'touchable' 3D tech could transform everything from VR to shopping

Founded in 2014 as a technology transfer venture company for the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, the Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture-based Miraisens Inc. says its haptic technology would make it possible to get a realistic sensation of touch through subtle changes of vibration patterns traveling through the fingertips. Miraisens founder and Chief Technology Officer Norio Nakamura, the developer of the technology, says the important thing is "how we trick our brain, which means what stimulus patterns should be given." Similar devices using haptic technology, which creates the sense of touch through force, vibrations or motion, have been developed by other companies to achieve just that, but they are generally expensive and inconvenient. Miraisens says its technology, dubbed 3D Haptics, can eliminate these worries as it is lightweight and small enough to be embedded in a game controller or TV remote at an affordable price. Miraisens Chief Executive Officer Natsuo Koda notes that haptics itself is not a novel technology; it has already been used in the flat and stationary home button on some iPhone models, Koda explains, which provides the clicking sensation when we press the button. But the firm's own technology can re-create a variety of sensations of touch in a 3D world, rather than on a surface -- a technology Koda says is "the world's first."