Researchers Turn Tables and Walls Into "Scratch Input" Surfaces

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 15, 2008 @06:24AM from the pants-are-input-devices-now-too dept.

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)."

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Re:Triangulation by Timmmm · 2008-11-15 06:43 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.