Samsung used this week’s SXSW confab to unveil a host of new projects from its employee-centric research and development unit C-Lab, including a experimental virtual reality (VR) headset that allows users to feel motion during a VR experience.
Dubbed Entrim 4D, the headset tricks the part of the inner ear that regulates motion and balance, giving the user the impression they can feel the speed of movement and direction of VR video. The technology uses electrical signals — delivered via headphones equipped with electrodes — that correspond with movement data in VR. Samsung is also pairing the technology with a drone, to give users the impression they’re flying.
“Virtual reality shouldn’t be experienced only with the eyes,” Steve Jung, creative leader of the project, said in a statement. “With Entrim 4D, we hope that people can experience VR the way it was meant to be — with their whole bodies.”
Samsung hopes the headset will do away with the need for 4D motion chairs and eliminate the motion sickness associated with VR. The Samsung team behind Entrim 4D has already tested the technology on more than 1,500 people, using 30 different movement patterns.
Additionally at SXSW, Samsung showed off a new social media app (called Waffle) that allows for multiple users to collaborate on the same piece of media. Samsung used the example of one user posting a photo with another adding a quote or doodle.
“Waffle enables users to add their own perspective to someone else’s content, and vice versa,” Joseph Kim, Waffle’s creative lead, said in a statement. “These doodles, images and messages converge into entirely new content.”
Lastly, Samsung debuted Hum On!, a mobile app that can transcribe a hummed melody into a musical score.
