With The Touch Of An Underarm…

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April 9, 2010 by Angela Shupe | 0 Comments

Are those pesky touchscreen mp3 player screens getting on your nerves? A student at the Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute has come up with an interface for mobile devices that can turn your body into a touchpad, says Computerworld Blogs.

The Borg-like technology, called “skinput,” involves attaching acoustic sensors to the upper arm to pick up tiny vibrations created when fingers tap or flick across the skin’s surface. A machine learning algorithm then interprets the input for forwarding to the target device.

The inventor, third year PhD student Chris Harrison, will present a paper on the technology at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Human Factors in Computing Systems conference on April 12. Harrison released a YouTube video and information about the project last month.

The device, which Harrison envisions being worn like a wristwatch, would allow control of a projected keypad or other user interface displayed directly on the skin – or it could allow the wearer to control a basic device such as an MP3 player without a template, simply by tapping fingers, the inventor claims.