Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, along with Microsoft’s research lab, have come up with a way to use 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. It consists of two parts. A tiny projector beams the image onto your skin. Tapping the “buttons” causes ripples to run through your skin and bones.
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.
Both sensor and projector can be put into the same armband, but the display is unnecessary: Another use is to tap the tips of the fingers to control an MP3 player, a task simple enough to rely on the user’s memory.
Various tap-based interfaces are possible, and the thing that impresses us about all of them is the simplicity for the user. We worry a little though. We already mistake people muttering into their Bluetooth headsets for crazy people who talk to themselves. Now we have to distinguish joggers skipping tracks on their iPods from drug-fried nut-jobs who twitch and scratch at imaginary insects crawling over their flesh. Thanks, researchers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g3XPUdW9Ryg
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