Apple may be designing a ‘finger-mounted device’: Here’s what it means – Times of India

Apple is mulling over the idea of controlling control systems with the help of a glove-type device that can be attached to the back of the user’s hand. The tech giant was recently granted a new patent which describes a”finger-mounted device with sensors and haptics” that can be used to interact with systems, as per a report by AppleInsider.
According to the patent, the device comes with sensors that will be put at strategic points along the location of the fingers so that the sensors can detect movement and provide haptic feedback. The sensors will give feedback to a control unit put on the back of the hand, which would be connected to a computer system. Now the finger units may or may not be physically connected to the control unit and could be connected wirelessly in the latter case.

“Rings can be placed around the user’s fingertips, anchored by the fingernails, which can be used to determine if single or multiple fingers is used to interact with an item or to perform gestures, and to offer simple haptic feedback in some instances, such as to feign contacting an item or to confirm input on a virtual button or keyboard. Onboard sensors could include force sensors and accelerometers, among others”, said the report.
Such a technology could help when the user is wearing an AR/VR headset and instead of using a keyboard and mouse to issue commands, they could use gesture controls and haptic feedback via the finger-mounted device. It would be different from a motion controller in that a person has to physically grab it first and if they try to grab a virtual item next, the effect gets lost.
If the aforementioned Apple device leaves out the undersides of the fingers uncovered, then it may allow the user to touch and pick up real world items too while at the same time being able to interact with virtual ones.