The new Oculus Rift Developer Guide that has been released alongside the new Oculus SDK software version 0.7, has revealed more details about the workings of the new Oculus Touch virtual reality controllers that will be used alongside the Oculus Rift VR headset.
The Oculus Touch hand controllers are equipped with touch sensitive buttons, as well as triggers and thumb joysticks, as well as allowing the user to control their movement and VR space using had gestures.
Oculus has installed pre-defined gestures in to the Touch for launch, removing the ability for developers to have raw access to them at the current time. The Oculus controllers also provide haptic feedback to users with vibrations, similar to that you would find in a rumble gamepad. Oculus explains a little more about how the Touch controllers function and pass information :
The controller hand pose data is separated from the input state because it comes from a different system and is reported at separate points in time. Controller poses are returned by the constellation tracking system and are predicted simultaneously with the headset, based on the absolute time passed into GetTrackingState. Having both hand and headset data reported together provides a consistent snapshot of the system state.
To find out everything there is about the new Oculus Touch controllers jump over to the Oculus Developers website via the link below.
Source: Road To VR : Oculus Rift Developer Guide