Chris Harrison at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, together with Dan Morris and Desney Tan at Microsoft's research lab in Redmond, Washington have been working for a project called ‘Skinput’. It is a project for bluetooth-featured gadget which allows users to use their own body or skin as touchscreen keyboard for input of phone, MP3 player, PC’ or game console. The system is a marriage of two technologies: the ability 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.
The system beams a keyboard or menu onto the user's forearm and hand from a projector housed in an armband. An acoustic detector, also in the armband, then calculates which part of the display you want to activate. Bluetooth will then transfer the signal to the suitable gadget. If someone dials numbers for calling, the info will go to the phone and will do as usual phone calling. The researchers exploit the way our skin, musculature and skeleton combine to make distinctive sounds when we tap on different parts of the arm, palm, fingers and thumb.
"Skinput works very well for a series of gestures, even when the body is in motion," the researchers say, with subjects able to deftly scroll through menus whether they moved up and down or flicked across their arm.
Sources:
1. Gizmodo
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