New Delhi, March 05: Those who find the touchscreens on their ever- shrinking gadgets too fiddly to handle, will be glad to hear that scientists are developing a new touch surface — your own arm.
Developers at Microsoft Research and Carnegie Mellon University are working together to create an armband — named Skinput — that projects an interface directly on your skin.
They have combined a mini projector, which creates a changing display, with a sophisticated sensor that can tell which part of your arm is being tapped.
The researchers showed Skinput could be used to control audio devices, play simple games such as Tetris, make phone calls and navigate simple browsing systems.
The gadget effectively turns your arm into a touchscreen surface by picking up the various ultra- low sounds produced when you tap different areas.
Different skin locations are acoustically distinct because of bone density and the filtering effect from soft tissues and joints.
The team used software that matched the sound frequencies of specific skin locations.
The prototype uses wireless technology such as Bluetooth to transmit the commands to the device being controlled, such as a phone, an iPod, or a computer.
The researchers, Chris Harrison, Desney Tan and Dan Morris, said: “ Our skin has been overlooked as an input canvas and is one that happens to always travel with us.
Furthermore, proprioception — our sense of how our body is configured in threedimensional space — allows us to accurately interact with our bodies in an eyesfree manner. We can readily flick each of our fingers, touch the tip of our nose, and clap our hands together without visual assistance.” The sensor picks up two types of acoustic signals — transverse waves created by the rippling of skin as it’s tapped and longitudinal waves that travel through the soft tissue of the arm and excite the bone.
Currently, the acoustic detector can perceive as many as five skin locations with an accuracy of 95.5 per cent, which would be high enough for many smartphone applications.
Harrison said: “ We achieved high input accuracy in the lab with about one error in 20 key presses, which is similar to what you might find on an iPhone keyboard.” There are many potential 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 wouldn’t even need a projector for most of these types of interactions.” Twenty volunteers who have tested the system said they found it fairly easy to navigate.
The researchers added that Skinput also worked well when the user was walking or running, a factor which would definitely add to its popularity.
The researchers plan to present their work in April at the Computer- Human Interaction meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.
–Agencies