Latest news with #haptic
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
D-BOX Confirms Naveen Prasad as President and CEO and Announces Leadership Realignment to Accelerate Growth and Execution
MONTREAL, Aug. 13, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- D-BOX Technologies Inc. (TSX: DBO), a global leader in haptic and immersive entertainment technology with systems deployed on well over 1,000 theatrical screens worldwide and a growing leadership position across simulation racing, training, and experiential markets, today announced the appointment of Naveen Prasad as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Mr. Prasad, elected to the Board of Directors at the Corporation's annual and special meeting of shareholders held on September 25, 2024, has served as Interim CEO since June 2025. His early tenure has already delivered meaningful momentum through executive realignment, commercial clarity, and improved financial and operational discipline. 'Naveen stepped into the interim role with clarity and conviction,' said Brigitte Bourque, Chair of the Board. 'He has energized the company, aligned the leadership team, and sharpened our focus on performance and market opportunity. We're pleased to confirm him as permanent CEO.' Executive and Structural Changes to Drive Companywide Execution Alongside Mr. Prasad's confirmation, D-BOX has implemented a strategic realignment of its leadership structure to improve execution, streamline decision-making, and accelerate growth across all segments: David Reid has been promoted to Chief Financial Officer, expanding his leadership across financial strategy, public disclosure, and cross-functional performance. Sébastien Boire Lavigne has been elevated to Chief Product and Technology Officer, unifying product, technology, IP and delivery under one mandate. A search is underway for a newly created Chief Commercial Officer role, which will integrate revenue, brand, and market strategy to unlock new growth opportunities and strengthen global positioning. Matt Garelik joins as Strategy & Business Development Consultant, reporting to the CEO. He will advise on commercial acceleration and brings leadership and his industry experience with studios, exhibitors and vendors such as Barco and Nielsen EDI. Robert Desautels, former D-BOX CTO and Chair of the Haptic Industry Forum, returns as IP and Platform Licensing Consultant, reporting to the CPTO. He will support licensing initiatives and technology monetization. In connection with these changes, Joshua Chandler, who previously held the CFO role, has officially left the company effective today. We wish him well in his future endeavours. Together, these changes reflect a focused commitment to operational rigor, commercial innovation, and value creation. 'We've sharpened our leadership structure, strengthened execution, and aligned the company for sustainable growth,' said Mr. Prasad. 'D-BOX is positioned to build deeper industry partnerships, expand market leadership, and deliver long-term value for shareholders.' This announcement coincides with the release of D-BOX's Q1 FY2026 financial results. ABOUT D-BOX TECHNOLOGIES INC. D-BOX Technologies Inc. (TSX: DBO) is a global leader in haptic technology, delivering immersive motion experiences that engage the body and spark the imagination. Our patented systems synchronize motion, vibration, and texture with on-screen content, enhancing storytelling across various platforms. With over 25 years of innovation, D-BOX's solutions are utilized in movie theaters, sim racing, and simulation & training. Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, with offices in Los Angeles, USA, D-BOX continues to redefine how audiences experience media worldwide. Visit FOR FURTHER INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT: D-BOX Media Relationsmedia@ D-BOX Investor Relationsinvestors@ DISCLAIMER REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTSCertain information included in this press release may constitute 'forward-looking information' within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information may include, among others, statements regarding the future plans, activities, objectives, operations, strategy, business outlook, and financial performance and condition of the Corporation, or the assumptions underlying any of the foregoing. In this document, words such as 'may', 'would', 'could', 'will', 'likely', 'believe', 'expect', 'anticipate', 'intend', 'plan', 'estimate' and similar words and the negative form thereof are used to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether, or the times at or by which, such future performance will be achieved. Forward-looking information, by its very nature, is subject to numerous risks and uncertainties and is based on several assumptions which give rise to the possibility that actual results could differ materially from the Corporation's expectations expressed in or implied by such forward-looking information and no assurance can be given that any events anticipated by the forward-looking information will transpire or occur, including but not limited to the future plans, activities, objectives, operations, strategy, business outlook and financial performance and condition of the Corporation. Forward-looking information is provided in this press release for the purpose of giving information about Management's current expectations and plans and allowing investors and others to get a better understanding of the Corporation's operating environment. However, readers are cautioned that it may not be appropriate to use such forward-looking information for any other purpose. Forward-looking information provided in this document is based on information available at the date hereof and/or management's good-faith belief with respect to future events and are subject to known or unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other unpredictable factors, many of which are beyond the Corporation's control. The risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Corporation's expectations expressed in or implied by the forward-looking information include, but are not limited to, the ability to complete a successful senior leadership transition. These and other risk factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations expressed in or implied by the forward-looking information are discussed under 'Risk Factors' in the Corporation's annual information form for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2025, a copy of which is available on SEDAR+ at Except as may be required by Canadian securities laws, the Corporation does not intend nor does it undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information contained in this press release to reflect subsequent information, events, circumstances or otherwise. The Corporation cautions readers that the risks described above are not the only ones that could have an impact on it. Additional risks and uncertainties not currently known to the Corporation or that the Corporation currently deems to be immaterial may also have a material adverse effect on the Corporation's business, financial condition or results of in to access your portfolio
Gizmodo
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
This Weird Haptic VR Glove Evokes One of Nintendo's Most Iconic Flops
VR is an exciting area for many reasons, but I personally love it because it's still a new enough niche to get really strange. That means all sorts of passion projects from lesser-known developers, 3D-printed accessories, and whatever the hell this is actually wind up seeing the light of day. Relatedly, it also means Sharp might, for real, produce this ridiculous haptic VR glove that evokes Nintendo's most iconic and infamous flops. YO. Sharp has made a haptic vr controller! Also the first image is someone giving a headpat, so I have high hopes, lol. Some of you might remember Sharp is working on an HMD that they debuted back in Parareal London. I REALLY think this design is better than gloves. — Lhun (@DyLhun) July 21, 2025I present to you: a haptic VR glove made by Japan-based company Sharp. While this is still a prototype, Sharp says its glove is capable of using haptics to translate textures and shapes in VR. Sharp says it aims to have haptic sensations on each of your five fingers, but that level of tactility could change depending on whether developers/users want more of it down the line. One thing that stands out about Sharp's glove is that it also has a traditional controller attached, so if you're not in a haptic VR mood, you can just use the on-glove joystick and buttons to navigate or play. It's a haptic glove with a little dose of Quest 3 controller. Nice. Sharp says its gloves won't 'allow for delicate finger tracking,' which I assume means it won't have tracking on top of the haptics but would probably still be able to be registered by native hand tracking on a VR headset. It also doesn't provide resistance like other haptic gloves (i.e., registering when you're gripping something that's either hard or soft). Even with those caveats, I can see a glove like this bringing a whole new level to VR experiences. I'm not a big fan of VRChat myself, but something with a similar feature set to this glove would probably appeal to anyone who's into that sort of thing, though the provisional $700 price tag may be a dealbreaker. Regardless, if you have the expendable income, coupling this glove with Bigscreen's VRChat-edition Beyond 2e headset would be a winning combo, you have to admit. If you're a connoisseur of old Nintendo hardware, the other thing that may jump out to you is the fact that Sharp's glove is giving big Nintendo Power Glove energy. If you don't know what that is, here's a picture of the Power Glove, released in 1989—notably well before VR took off in any mainstream kind of way. Nintendo's glove was clearly well before its time, and while it didn't have haptics in it, it combined motion controls and analog buttons in a way that was revolutionary for the time. Granted, it didn't work all that well, but you have to give Nintendo credit for trying to push the boundaries. I'm going to give Sharp the benefit of the doubt and say its glove—should it ever be released on a wider scale—will probably work better than the Power Glove, which would be great for both Sharp and anyone who buys it. Either way, it's another fun exercise in the wild ways we can further augment a VR experience for a niche that's done quite a bit of growing since the days of Nintendo's Virtual Boy.
WIRED
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- WIRED
Feeling Is Believing With Razer's Freyja Haptic Gaming Cushion
I remember the first time I played a first-person shooter. It was Star Wars: Battlefront 2 , the 2005 version, on the Playstation 2 in my friend's basement, when I was a kid. I felt like I was right there. The frigid winds of Hoth ripped across my face, and the chatter of comms was right up against my ear. I felt the heat of blaster bolts zipping through the air, and heard them crackling as they shot past my face. I brought the scope up to my eye, aimed, steadied my breath, and pulled the trigger. A stormtrooper fell to the ground, and I felt like I'd earned a small victory for the Rebellion. As a child, games felt immersive to me. They felt real, like I was in that world. A large part of that was my suspension of disbelief—I wanted the game to be real, and I was willing to accept it as real, so I overlooked the low-resolution textures, the polygons that I could count, and the compressed 32-bit audio. The scan lines of the CRT television in my friend's basement faded away, and the controller felt less like a tool and more like an extension of myself. It's an experience that slowly slipped away as I got older, one I've been chasing ever since. In chasing that feeling, I've tweaked my setup with fine-tuned keyboards, open-back headphones, ultrawide monitors, racing wheels, and even virtual reality headsets. They help, but they're still external to my senses. The Razer Freyja, on the other hand, is a $300 haptic gaming cushion that brings gaming a step closer to a full-body experience. Sounds and actions rumble through my body and make the game world feel just a bit more like I'm sitting inside of it, instead of being an external force looking in through a window. It doesn't suspend my disbelief like when I was a kid, but it makes it much easier for all the details of the external world to disappear. Gaming Seat Photograph: Henri Robbins The Freyja can strap onto nearly any gaming or office chair to create physical feedback while you game. The system can either directly connect to some games or it can vibrate based on the audio coming from your computer. It's exactly what you might think a gaming cushion looks like, and unlike some pricier alternatives, it means you don't have to replace your current chair. It is entirely dependent on the software it works with and how developers implement it. To connect the Freyja, you'll need both a nearby electrical socket and a free USB-A port on your system for Razer's 2.4-GHz wireless dongle. The cushion doesn't have any batteries, so your chair will lose some mobility whenever the Freyja is connected. If you need to roll around, disconnect the barrel jack connector on the side of the cushion. It's robust, with vibration zones that react quickly. It could get to the point where I was being shaken in my chair, without ever eliciting a slight rattling or a stray noise. The integration into Razer's Chroma software never had any issues and worked well. However, I ran into a few hiccups, especially with intermediary software like SimHub. The game I was playing would lose connection with SimHub, and I would have to restart my system or spend some time troubleshooting to get it working again. The Freyja didn't have connectivity issues itself, but some outlets in my house didn't want to keep it powered. I suspect that's a voltage issue more than anything else. As of publication, the Freyja has full native support for 12 games and one simulation racing app, SimHub, which opens it up to countless racing games. During my testing, I focused mainly on racing games: Assetto Corsa , Forza Horizon 4 , Forza Horizon 5 , and DiRT Rally 2.0 , all of which used SimHub's built-in telemetry to create haptic feedback for pretty much every aspect of a car.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘F1' Review: Brad Pitt Speeds His Way Through a Solid Summer Blockbuster That Never Reaches Top Gear
In a clever flex of corporate synergy, Apple promoted its first summer blockbuster with the release of a haptic trailer that imitates the purr of an F1 engine in the palms of your hands. The clip delivers such well-calibrated vibrations that watching it on an iPhone makes it seem like you're microdosing 4DX right on the subway, or the toilet, or wherever it is you choose to enjoy the film industry's latest breakthrough in vertical integration. But the real potency of this ad, and the real potential of the technology that it represents, can only be experienced by viewing the promo on mute — the haptic feedback is so nuanced and expressive that you can literally feel the basic plot and emotions of Joseph Kosinski's 'F1' through your fingertips. It's the closest thing to 'pure cinema' I've ever enjoyed on a device that I primarily use for playing Marvel Snap and Googling answers to my five-year-old son's trivia questions (yes, a rhino could outrun Usain Bolt). More from IndieWire How Two Weddings Altered the Course of Modern Love in Celine Song's 'Materialists' 'The Waterfront' Review: Netflix's Sludgy Family Crime Drama Is a Shallow Reflection of Better Shows How disappointing, then, that the film itself manages to offer so little of the same thrill, despite the benefit of booming Dolby speakers, the scale of an IMAX screen, and the sleekness of a director whose aesthetic naturally cleaves towards Apple commercials (see: 'Oblivion'). That's certainly not for lack of trying. Determined to bring the same you are there verisimilitude to race cars that they did to fighter jets in 'Top Gun: Maverick,' Kosinski, cinematographer Claudio Miranda, and superproducer Jerry Bruckheimer have gone to extraordinary lengths to capture the essence of F1 — lengths that include turning Brad Pitt and co-star Damson Idris into legit Grand Prix drivers, attaching hi-def micro-cameras to the frames of their vehicles as the actors whipped around the world's most famous tracks, and filming at the actual events that are depicted in the movie. Not only was the fictional APXGP team granted its own garage right between Scuderia Ferrari and Mercedes, but the pre-race party Idris' character attends before the tour's Las Vegas pitstop is even hosted by the real DJ Tiësto! 'F1' is far too sincere in its crowd-pleasing ambitions to feel like a fully licensed piece of $200 million sponcon, but the movie's commitment to authenticity extends to every aspect of its titular sport, both on the track and off, as its mission to win over new converts is only outdone by its eagerness to satisfy diehard fans. Alas, Formula One has always been a testament to the difficulty of striking the right balance between power and precision, and 'F1' embodies that aspect of the sport all too well. Always entertaining for how effectively it welds hyper-modern spectacle to the chassis of a classic underdog story (the latter part of that equation paving the way for Pitt's most Billy Bean-coded performance since 'Moneyball'), Kosinski's film can be propulsive and exhilarating in spurts, but in working so hard to satisfy newbies and experts at the same time that it often struggles to seize on its simplest pleasures. Misfits becoming teammates. Losers finding redemption. Cars going really, really fast. All of these things are key parts of the mix, but for a movie so preoccupied with the difference between sound and noise (what's relevant to a racer at 200 M.P.H. vs. what they need to tune out), 'F1' often fails to lock in on what really matters to its defining moments — a frustration that's reflected in everything from character arcs and backstories to shot selections and the incessant use of broadcast-like color commentaries. Your whole body will vibrate for the better part of this film's speedy 156-minute running time, and few other blockbusters this summer will be more fun to experience at a level of volume that you can't get at home, but loudness is a sad consolation prize for a movie whose own trailer didn't need any sound at all to better capture the flow state that its protagonist lives to chase. Sonny Hayes (Pitt) hasn't enjoyed the most storied of professional racing careers, but you can tell from his name alone — a perfect movie name — that he was born to be in the driver's seat, and that he doesn't belong anywhere else. A future star of the F1 circuit until a devastating 1993 crash turned him from a 'will be' to a 'never was,' Sonny has spent the last 30 years as a wandering samurai who's taken any job that came attached to a pair of wheels, from a stock car racer to a New York City cab driver. Somewhere between a stoic Western archetype and a shit-eating myth, he lives in a van where he can suffer hotly in peace. The money never mattered to Sonny (he only needed enough to support his gambling addiction), and winning has always been little more than a means to an end — the shortest path to the self-actualization that he gets from being one with the road. Except, three decades of feeling like a loser seems to have taken its toll, and the first thing he tells his Daytona teammate in the film's opening scene is that he'll kill him if the guy blows their lead. This is as much insight as we'll ever get into the tao of Sonny, but it's enough to understand why he hesitates when his old racing buddy Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), now the desperate owner of the worst team on the F1 circuit, shows up with an unprecedented offer for a washed-up 60-year-old nobody: Become the not-so-new face of APXGP and save what's left of their season so that Ruben doesn't lose the company. It's a hail Mary, and Sonny isn't sure the risk of embarrassment is worth the paycheck that comes with it, but he can't turn down the chance at the glory that once got away from him and/or the chance to drive the world's fastest cars. And so, before we even get to the title card, Ehren Kruger's sleek and sturdy script has already put the story's foundation in place. All that's left is for Sonny to spar with APXGP's hotshot rookie driver (an instantly compelling Idris as cocky London native Joshua Pearce, all flash to Sonny's zen-like calm), make eyes at the sport's first female technical director (the ever-appealing Kerry Condon, squeezing worlds of personality out of a human plot device), and learn to get out of his own way as he comes to appreciate that F1 is a team sport. A few other bits take shape in the margins, including a garbled subplot involving Tobias Menzies as a techbro financier and some 'Ted Lasso'-adjacent hijinks with APXGP's winsome pit crew (unrelated to 'Lasso' alum Sarah Niles' performance as Joshua's mom), but 'F1' is generally as straightforward and predictable as any of the nine different tracks that Sonny zooms around over the course of the film. In theory that should work to the benefit of this vintage Bruckheimer vehicle, and occasionally it does. The simplicity of the film's story makes it easier for Kosinski to accommodate the arcane nature of F1's rules, even if he never finds a satisfying way to incorporate them on the fly, and — similar to Kruger's script for 'Maverick' — the lack of a clear villain for most of the movie allows the focus to remain squarely on the main characters, who are racing against each other and themselves to a much greater degree than they are any of the drivers from rival teams. But where 'Maverick' was able to support that focus with decades of baked-in pathos, 'F1' is forced to rely on the ample charms of its cast. While no one will ever get bored watching Pitt and Idris push each other's buttons, there isn't exactly a world of depth behind Sonny's leathered renegade schtick (it's a bit tiresome how many times he races outside the lines without alerting the rest of his team), just as the complexities of Joseph's arrogance are mostly hidden in the folds of Idris' performance. More frustrating is that the actual racing sequences are less expressive than the dialogue scenes. While the realism of the film's grand prix events is obviously second to none (silly as some of Sonny's rule-skirting gambits can be), and Kosinski has a proven track record of making speed look even cooler in the movies than it does in real life, 'F1' makes the mistake of trying to reconcile the experience of driving Formula One with the experience of watching it on TV. The most obvious symptom of that is the aforementioned broadcast commentary, which narrates literally everything that happens during the races. In large part, that's a necessary evil of a film that has to explain how placing, safety cars, and tire grades work to an audience of neophytes in real-time. But in order to disguise the expository function of the commentary and affirm the authenticity of the average fan's F1 experience (which is to say: enjoying the races from their couch rather than the stands), the narration is also prone to saying things like 'Sonny has fallen to last place! That's not going to make AXPGP happy.' On TV, that sort of color helps confer a narrative onto unconstructed reality. In the context of this movie, it crushes the reality out of a constructed narrative. The driver's seat of an F1 car is pretty small to begin with, and Kosinski's film — which constantly defaults to a 'Star Wars'-like cockpit shot in order to show us Sonny's face while proving that Pitt is actually behind the wheel — leaves viewers precious little space to engage with the film's characters on their own terms. The emotional impact is so blunted that our only choice is to surrender to the booming spectacle of it all (Hans Zimmer, take the wheel), but even that proves difficult in a film that never quite solves how to handle the sameness of a 44-lap race. Kosinski is limited to 15 camera positions on each car, few of which capture anything more than wheel-to-wheel intensity, and he compensates for that lack of choice by restlessly cutting between them. It's as if the film is trying to reflect Sonny's agitated pursuit of clarity amid the chaos (a suspicion that's strengthened by subtle changes in the editing towards the end), and every merciful retreat to a top-down angle feels like a concession to the fact that Kosinski hasn't found a more satisfying way to shoot F1 than they do on TV. The action is hardly dull, but the sheer disconnect between the wowee zowee immediacy of the race footage and the mezzo mezzo excitement it inspires suggests that tuning out the noise isn't as easy as Sonny Hayes might seem to think. 'Sometimes when you lose, you win,' Ruben tells his old friend. And sometimes when you win, this solid but underwhelming blockbuster contends, you still lose. Apple Original Films and Warner Bros. Studios will release 'F1' in theaters on Friday, June 27. Want to stay up to date on IndieWire's film and critical thoughts? to our newly launched newsletter, In Review by David Ehrlich, in which our Chief Film Critic and Head Reviews Editor rounds up the best new reviews and streaming picks along with some exclusive musings — all only available to subscribers. Best of IndieWire The 25 Best Alfred Hitchcock Movies, Ranked Every IndieWire TV Review from 2020, Ranked by Grade from Best to Worst
Digital Trends
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Apple released a haptic trailer for F1, and it's unbelievable
Imagine feeling the action of a Formula One race in the palm of your hand. Apple did just that with an exclusive haptic trailer for F1, the upcoming sports drama premiering at the end of the month. What is a haptic trailer? The trailer puts fans in the driver's seat with Sonny Hayes, played by Brad Pitt. While watching the F1 trailer on an iPhone, the phone will vibrate in sync with the video. For example, Sonny speeds down a straightaway during the trailer. The haptic vibrations will increase to represent the engine's power and speed. Recommended Videos According to Apple, each haptic sequence aligns with the beats and rhythm of the film. This leads to an immersive and unique experience for the viewer. The F1 haptic trailer is available in the Apple TV app and in the App store. All iPhone users need is iOS 18.4 or later. There is nothing additional to download or activate. Sonny Hayes (Pitt) is a once-promising driver in the 1990s whose career nearly came to an end after a tragic accident. Sonny was once dubbed 'the greatest that never was' because of his potential. In the present day, Sonny still races cars, but his F1 dreams have all but disappeared. Sonny's former teammate, Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem), offers him the deal of a lifetime. Ruben wants Sonny to come out of retirement and race for his team, Apex Grand Prix (APXGP). Ruben needs a veteran to pair with his hotshot rookie, Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris). Despite having no interest in being a mentor, Sonny reluctantly agrees and returns behind the wheel for one last shot at redemption. Kerry Condon, Tobias Menzies, and Kim Bodnia also star. Top Gun: Maverick's Joseph Kosinski directs F1 from a screenplay written by Ehren Kruger, based on a story the two cowrote. F1 races into theaters and IMAX on June 27.
