Moreover, although FIG. 2 illustrates a one-way haptic communication where the sending user sends a haptic signal to the receiving user, the haptic communication can be bidirectional. Further, a sending user can broadcast the haptic signal to a plurality of receiving users instead of a single user.
Example System for Converting Speech to Haptic Signals
FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a haptic communication system 300 converting a speech message from a source 318 to a haptic signal, in accordance with an embodiment. The haptic communication system 300 decomposes speech signals into speech subcomponents and converts the speech subcomponents to distinct haptic symbols mapped to the speech subcomponents. The speech source 318 may process signals from a source (e.g., microphone) to generate speech signals 216. The speech signals 216 may be sent directly to the receiving device 268 or via the social networking system 228. For this purpose, the speech source 318 may include a microphone to detect voice signals from a sending user and/or a media storage that stores recordings of voice messages, as described below with reference to FIG. 10A.
