Very cool. If you're interested in this technology, you can get larger handheld air cannons that shoot big blasts of air quite far. (They're a ton of fun!) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_vortex_cannon
From the linked paper [0], from the description of figure 2 on page 2, it appears as if the "enclosure, flexible nozzle and gimbal structures" are all 3D printed.
The description of how they empirically found a good nozzle shape also implies that they 3D printed the various designs before settling on the final version.
Or simply because 3d printed is a huge buzzword right now. Technically, 3d printing these offers no benefit over more conventional technologies like injection molding.
I would like to disagree that there aren't any moving parts used whilst generating ultrasonic waves. After all, something needs to vibrate.
Ultrasonic levitation is pretty cool, and the tacile interface isn't bad either. I just somewhat pity that they've looked at the technology and told themselves "Ohh, that'd be great for musicians", which I think isn't the right assumption to make in this case. I mean HD-MIDI still hasn't been adapted widely after being discussed in 2005 (that's 8 years now), so I wonder if musicians are a fertile breeding ground for "paradigm changing tacile interfaces".
Very cool, but it looks like latency is a problem, since vortex propagation speed is limited by the medium of air (I'm guessing...) It might be OK when very close to the device, as in the tablet examples.
Compared with rumble/vibration in console controllers/phones, it's directional and hands-free. I wonder if gyroscopic twisting forces might be better for giving actual forces of resistance?
For certain types of games latency shouldn't be a problem since you can map the future interaction point between hand and target. If you miss then, well you missed. Boxing games would work well, FPS not so much. In a POV game you can't predict the view angle so also not the interaction point.
