Skinput
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Your next phone call may be just a couple of arm-taps away.
Cell phones keep getting smaller, but my fingers stay just as fat, dang it!
This is Sandra Tsing Loh with the Loh Down on Science, and a solution to tiny electronics, thanks to Chris Harrison, a grad student in human and computer interaction at Carnegie-Mellon University.
The device, called "Skinput," uses the body itself as an electronic interface. Imagine dialing a call just by tapping your fingers.
How does it work? Acoustic energy. Tap your wrist: Shock waves ripple across your skin and through bone and tissue below. Tapping or flicking different spots creates waves of different frequencies. An index-finger tap? Acoustically distinct from a pinky or forearm.
Skinput's armband sensors pick up the waves. Then, using custom software, a computer interprets the input.
Currently Skinput is accurate for five different hand or arm locations. When linked to an iPod or cell phone, that's five commands.
The armband even has a built-in projector. Shine a keypad on your arm or play Tetris on your palm!
For now I'll just keep texting "C U Roon. Love, Pandra." Or something like that.
The Loh Down on Science, online, at lohdown.org. Produced by 89.3 KPCC and the California Institute of Technology, and made possible by TIAA-CREF.
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