In a world where digital touchpoints are increasingly shaping our experiences, a recent patent offers an enticing glimpse into a new era in mobile gaming. "Touch and Play: A New Way to Interact with Games brought to you by InterDigital Chorus Mesh" is the brainchild of InterDigital VC Holdings. They've secured this patent under the number US11726557B2.
The essence of this inventiveness lies in the promise of a groundbreaking experience – imagine moving or touching real things to trigger events on your computer or in your game? This technique functions by processing your movements and responses. To make things more thrilling, the platform can shake or buzz to signal an event that occurred in the game, a result of your action.
The patent emerges from the limitation that current mobile Augmented Reality (AR) applications don't allow a holistic, direct interaction with the user's environment. They particularly fail to tap into the potential of tactile interactions even while being embedded in the user's surroundings. This new patent discloses an innovative solution to fill this gap, making games more diverse, exciting, and immersive.
The patent sketches out various ways to detect tactile interactions with the environment. In certain cases, multiple detection strategies are combined to ensure accuracy. By adding a tactile element, AR games can become enjoyable, engaging, and can provide an educational edge as players are encouraged to explore their environment through touch. Augmenting these tactile interactions with haptic feedback further adds to their usability and the realism of the augmented reality. To illustrate this, the patent includes figures from 1 to 8, each of them representing diagrammatic renderings of these functionalities.
Yet, it is important to remember that as exciting as this innovation is, the future implementation of this patent remains uncertain. While it promises a new dimension in the gaming world, patents often remain concepts and may not necessarily make it to the commercial stage. But if realized, the InterDigital Chorus Mesh offers a tantalizing prospect for gamers and future education platforms alike - a blend of practical and digital in one sweeping move.