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Researchers Turn Tables and Walls Into "Scratch Input" Surfaces
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's HCI Institute have developed a new input technology that allows mobile devices to use surfaces they rest on, like tables, for gestural finger input. This is achieved with some clever acoustic tricks — basically taking advantage of high frequency sound propagation through dense materials. Their video highlights some neat applications, such as controlling an MP3 player by scratching on a wall and muting a cell phone by scratching on a table. Further details are available in the academic paper (PDF)."
these sorts of hidden interfaces worry me.
If we come to expect interfaces to devices to be hidden and embedded in desktops and surrounding walls we are going to spend half our lives scratching and poking at inanimate things.
I am all for integration of technology but things like this and the hidden table things will just make us look stupid.
give us clear interfaces on recognisable devices so that we understand what we are doing.
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The speed of sound in wood is approx 0.6-5 km/s making it not only highly anisotropic (due to the grain structure) but also giving it a long wavelength (20-160 cm @ 3 kHz).
Sorry; blame physics.
Which is ironically a HCI Problem.
I wonder how viable it would be to use a surface as a mouse tho using frequency shift (doppler effect) to measure direction of the scratch, not position.
It's pretty different. This is a manufactured surface. Scratch input uses any old surface you happen to rest the device on. One is portable, one isn't...
The sound varies by acceleration, so it can determine the unique pattern of drawing a circle or drawing a V, for example. If you watch the video where he controls the song, he uses different gestures for different commands. The only thing it doesn't do anything with is how far you are from the mic.
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