Monday, 9. November 2009, 11:32:45
UI, User Interface, computing, gesture
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It's a good time to be communicating with computers. No longer are we constrained by the mouse and keyboard--touch screens and gesture-based controllers are becoming increasingly common.
Now, researchers at Microsoft, the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Toronto in Canada have come up with another way to interact with computers: a muscle-controlled interface that allows for hands-free, gestural interaction.
A band of electrodes attach to a person's forearm and read electrical activity from different arm muscles. These signals are then correlated to specific hand gestures, such as touching a finger and thumb together, or gripping an object tighter than normal. The researchers envision using the technology to change songs in an MP3 player while running or to play a game like Guitar Hero without the usual plastic controller.
Source:
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/23813/?a=f
Friday, 6. November 2009, 09:18:40
User Interface, UI, gesture, control
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In some households, fighting over the TV remote is a raging nightly battle. In mine it’s more of a cold war detente. Either way, by the end of next year Hitachi (NYSE: HIT) may take the conflict to a whole new level. Working with Canesta and GestureTek, the Japanese electronics giant has created a line of television sets that will be able to recognize a viewer’s hand gestures. Instead of a remote control, you can just wave your hand in the right way to change channels or volume. Check out the video after the break to see Hitachi’s demonstration at CES from earlier this year.
From tablet PCs to iPhones, designers are giving us new ways to interact with our electronic devices. The future of the human-computer interface is likely to be much more tactile and intuitive than our current dependence on keyboard, mouse or remote control. With gesture controlled television, Hitachi and its partners aren’t just removing the necessity of a remote, they’re blurring the lines between the real world and the digital one.
Source:
http://singularityhub.com/2009/10/29/new-hitachi-tv-controlled-by-gestures-video/
Tuesday, 7. July 2009, 08:08:36
UI, User Interface, glove, Gaming
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Gloves that are wired with sensors can provide useful information about a user's motions, and they offer a novel way to interact with computers beyond the keyboard and mouse. At the end of May, AnthroTronix, a company based in Silver Spring, MD, released its first commercial version of the AcceleGlove, a programmable glove that records hand and finger movements.
Other gloves--like 5DT's Data Glove, used primarily in virtual reality--normally cost $1,000 to $5,000, but the AcceleGlove costs just $499. It comes with software that lets developers use Java to program it for any application they wish. AnthroTronix initially developed the glove with the U.S. Department of Defense for robotic control. The glove could also be used in video games, sports training, or physical rehabilitation.
Source:
http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22838/
Thursday, 18. June 2009, 09:10:33
User Interface, accelerometers, mobile communications, cell phone
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It's a familiar scene in airports and train stations. Hands full with luggage, briefcase, laptop or coat and there's something you need to remember, like the level and row numbers where you parked your car in the deck. What do you do?
Instead of relying on your memory, or finding a place to put all your stuff down to find a pen and paper, wouldn't it be so convenient to simply write "level 4, row H" in the air and be able to retrieve it later?
Engineering students at Duke University have taken advantage of the accelerometers in emerging cell phones to create an application that permits users to write short notes in the air with their phone, and have that message automatically sent to an e-mail address.
Source:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-06/du-wia060909.php
Tuesday, 24. February 2009, 09:52:48
User Interface, UI, haptics, gesture
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The functions of previously separate gadgets like cameras, phones, and music players have come together into single devices in recent years. But juggling all of those functions in one product with multiple personalities is not simple, and confusing interfaces plague many big-selling gadgets.
But a new prototype that is able to predict what function its user wants from the way it is manipulated, shows a more intuitive way to tackle the problem.
They have created a "bar of soap" device, with an LCD screen front and rear. It contains a three-axis accelerometer to measure its motion in 3D, and 72 sensors across its surface to track the position of the user's fingers.
The researchers tested their prototype on 13 users who were asked to pick up several times, holding it each time in turn as if it were a remote control, PDA, camera, games controller, or mobile phone. By analysing the output from the sensors, the team spotted patterns in the way the different users held the gadget, and their grip gave clues about how they expected the device to perform.
Source:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16617-gadget-reads-users-minds-from-their-grip.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
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