Novint Falcon

[MattH]

Novint (http://home.novint.com/)was part of the CES Unveiled on this past week and Friday Kali, Chris and I were able to stop by their both at the LVCC to get sometime with their featured controller called the Falcon. The controller is one the catches your eye as being a little strange looking, but as with all controllers in this category, some awesome experiences come out of using it. While Chris was using the pistol grip and running through Half-Life2, Kali was using the Novint Grip to interact with the virtual material displayed on the laptop screen. For example as Kali held the Novint controller in her fingers, a virtual hand was displayed on the screen and a ball of different material was shown on the screen in first demo was a ball of molasses. Kali would push forward and the hand would submerge into the molasses and the falcon would give a very calculated force feed back as the virtual hand moved through the virtual material till it came out the other side. Other virtual material was a ball of ice which the virtual hand would slip off and could not push through to a rubber ball which would give a little but not allow the virtual hand to push through but more than likely slide off. Comments from Chris’ experience included “using this controller is very addictive.” And “I don’t want to go back to my mouse now!”

We are looking forward to getting our hands on one of these to review in the near future, so stay tuned to TWL for the latest on this and other products!

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