New York — Annoyed with the tiny touch-screens on today’s mobile devices? Ever since the immensely huge success of Apple’s touchscreen devices that has revolutionized the way we communicate with electronics, Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, along with Microsoft’s research lab have developed and innovative gadget called “Skinput,” an experimental device that turns the skin of your arm (or any other part of your body) to act as a display and an input device, without actually implanting anything weird into you.
Now, those who find the miniature touch-screens on their ever shrinking gadgets too fiddly to handle, will be glad to hear that an international team of scientist have designed a Skinput, which has the ability to relieve the restrictiveness of an iPhone-sized screen, and has the power to detect the ultralow-frequency sound produced by tapping the skin with a finger, and the microchip-sized “pico” projectors now found in some cellphones.
(Credit: Chris Harrison/Carnegie Mellon University)
Chris Harrison and colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, collaborating with Dan Morris and Desney Tan at Microsoft’s research lab in Redmond, Washington, assembled an acoustic bio-sensor to detect sound patterns created when tapping a forearm or palm. Each part has a specific acoustic signature that can be associated with functions like dialing a phone or playing Tetris. Pinching and flicking gestures can also be used for commands.
Skinput employs a bio-acoustic sensing range coupled with a wrist-mounted pico-projector to turn your skin into a touch-screen. It consists of two parts. According to researches, a tiny system beams a keyboard or menu onto the user’s forearm and hand from a projector housed in an armband. Tapping the “buttons” causes ripples to run through your skin and bones. An acoustic detector, also in the armband, then calculates which part of the display is to be activated.
The research team has identified various locations on the forearm and hand that produce characteristic acoustic patterns when tapped. These waves change depending on where you tap, as they run through bone, soft tissues and the like. Special software analyzes these waves, and uses the information to work out exactly where you touched, just as if you were tapping an iPhone screen. Specific locations can be mapped to certain functions: in the video you see somebody playing Tetris by tapping their fingers.
Lead researcher Chris Harrison from Carnegie Mellon University, said: “This is cutting edge technology and we really are seeing the future here. The project is going very well and I think you will begin to see such interfaces emerge within the next five years.”
Skinput contains five piezoelectric beams to detect sound frequencies and respond to different “skin buttons”. The system is surprisingly on target. It has an accuracy of up to 95 percent in detecting tapped spots and works even when the body is in motion, according to the researchers, who are presenting a paper at the 28th Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in April.
Twenty volunteers who have examined the gadget said they found it easy to navigate. The system could use wireless technology like Bluetooth to convey commands to many types of device — including phones, iPods and even PCs.
There are many huge markets for the device. Harrison said: “One example is an audio player on your upper arm. Perhaps it has no buttons at all, and only uses the skin as the finger input canvas. You could then just tap your fingers to advance to the next song, change the volume, or pause the current song. You would not even need a projector for most of these types of interactions.”
If the gadget ever becomes a commercial commodity, it would certainly give a new dimension to our perception of common gestures. Drumming your fingers nervously could actually be texting, for example, while a slap to the forehead could launch a Web browser.