Today we have another group discussion to narrow down the ideas and select potential ideas for the project. According to the lab instructor, we should focus more on designing a new device rather than implementing a new peice of software. Based on that, we have eliminate some ideas such Mario Kart and Kitchen Minitors as these are software development mainly.
The rest of the group session is more branstorming into new device and hardware development. By the end of the group discussion, We had a potential idea about an interpersonal gesture detector (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: The interpersonal gesture detector idea.
This idea is inspired by rhe Disney research Touche'. Here is the video demonstrate the Disney Touche' research
Last week, we had a first brainstorm session. Our group has 5 members and we came up with more than 20 ideas. These range from wearable devices to household applicants but there were 3 ideas was selected. These are Mario Kart augmented reality game, a wearable synchronizer, and dynamic QR enhanced clothing for social interactions. I am particularly interested in the wearable synchroniser. The idea behide that is to allow people know the other greeting reference and act conrespondingly.
Pairing - Hell No
However, I see the security issue here. Consider all the existing communication technologies such as NFC, and Bluetooth. These are required the grant permission before pairing to transfer information. The wearable synchosier needs to send and receive signal all the time in order to cleverly identify other people greeting referecnce. So if the devices ask both users to grant permission to pair and then enter PIN, it becomes rather an unnecessary device. The users would possibly refer to ask directly the greeting reference from the other which take less than a minute and of course free.
Smart Watch Implementation
Ignoring the Bluetoth pairing and NFC problem, the idea can be implemented as an application onf smart watch platform rather than developing a new device which is costly and time consumming. Another benefit of using the existing platform is the project is not put at risk of the potential market as the smart watch market is already exist and taking quite a portion in the future.
Clap to unfriend > < FriendBeams - using NFC to make friends
So we also came up with the idea "Clap to unfriend", the idea is to synchonise the real world activities with social network. This is quite cool when everyone now on Twitter or Facebook. This idea reminds me a small application that allow users to use NFC on their phone to make friend.
I think it is a great app. Rather logging on FaceBook, searching for the user, pressing friend request button, now users just need put their 2 phones near and then done. The process take less than a few second. This is quick, easy and no hassle.
Other Ideas
Andy, one of our group memeber, has a very clear description of all notable ideas HERE.
It is really
interesting to see other group’s ideas. Some are totally news and some are new
ways of combining things. Overall, I think each group has done very well in
presenting their ideal projects to the audience. However, there is one I am
particularly really interested in - a smart mirror. I couldn’t remember what they
exactly call it but I think smart mirror can be used here appropriately.
The smart mirror
proposed a new multifunction mirror. According to the presenter, it can be use
as a normal mirror with added features such as weather backgrounds. The weather
background allow users to foreseen what they look like in a particular weather
condition such as snow, rain and sunny. The idea is not something breakthrough
or amazing new but it is very practical and useful.
I think there are other
features can be added to the smart mirror to make it even more useful. It can
allow user to see their look with a certain weight and hence motivate person to
loose weights or gaining muscle. Moreover, users can choose different
background such as in the beach, forest, or at the party, it will help users
visualize more what they actually look like when wearing particular clothes.
Intel MemoryMirror
is one type of smart mirror but it is rather than a camera and the screen. The
functionality of the MemoryMirror is nothing rather than a camcorder with
playback feature. Another example is Panasonic Smart Mirror. The mirror allows
user to foreseen their make up or their beard J. It
is more like a fun app to play with rather than a device that actually help user
do something. I think part of the reason is the market for such a device is new
and none of the producers make a proper investment on it. Hence, it is still a
paper work.
Panasonic's Smart Mirror Demonstration
Even though, the
group didn’t mention anything about implementation or how could the smart
mirror can be produced, it is clear that a massive screen and cameras will
obviously be used. Of course, a pc or tablet is used to control the smart
mirror.
I think using exist
devices such as tablets running iOS or Android is the best choice for the
project. The group will be mainly developing an application that take the input
from the cameras, process it and output to the big screen act like a mirror.
This will mainly to deal with image processing technique and machine learning.
In order to produce a perfect mirror, developers can consider place a
background color to use he mirror, which is very practical.
Overall, I think this is a great idea. It can
turn to a product for that every fashion shops need to have, or any homes that
user can afford a modern and multi purpose mirror. The only drawback of this
project is that it may take a lot of work and up to years to finish
There are many interesting researches,
new devices and new projects at the SCM UIST 2014. Some projects are super
creative when the others are very practical in improving existing technologies.
After going through all the videos in the SCM UIST 2014, I find that even
though these innovations and works are excellent and worth credited for, there
are not many can be actually apply in solving the real work problems now or in
a very near future.Skin buttons is however
can be seen as one of the bright project for future deployment and can promise
a great success.
The five researchers at the Carnegie
Mellon University have come up with the idea of laser projections to solve the
problem of small screen such as smart watch. They developed a prototype that
can project laser icons on skin that allow users to touch it as touch buttons.
The prototype can be easily integrated to smart watches or other devices. The
video provided by them about the prototype is very impressive.
As seen on the video, these laser icons
act like buttons and users can use it to fully interact with the connected
device. These laser buttons are clickable and clearly visible on the user skin.
There are 2 main components are used in
the prototype: the button projectors and the touch sensing. The button
projector is implemented by combining a tiny laser projector with a fix button
image film. The touch sensing is achieved by using a photo transistor/emitter.
The transistor/emitter measures the intensity of reflected infrared from the
surface. The commination of these two creates the touch touchable laser
buttons.
The initial testing carried out by them shows a
high accuracy with 96.9% correct
click. In addition, the power measure of the sensors is as slow as slow as 1mW
and the laser projector is 19.9mW. The paper also indicates that adjusting the
brightness and the sleeping mode of the device can reduce the use power. The
cost of production of the prototype has been estimated at around 5$ which is
relative cheap and can be potentially reduced rapidly if go on mass production.
Although the paper and the video shows
the functional prototype, the project is still in an early stage of development
with some limitations such as fix icon projectors only and uncontrolled brightness
of the icons. Still, the project has show that it can be used to improve the
interaction with small touch screens. In addition, it can be used as the main
interaction in some specially environments where touch screen is impossible
such as under water. I may also be used to aid user with disability.
Personally, I find the prototype is
really “cool”. The “cool” thing is that it projects nice looking and eyes
catching image right on the skins. Another “cool” thing is it can be used as
part of the smart watch, which is a trend now. All the big names namely
Samsung, Apple, Sonny, and LG have already joined the wearable gadget games.
Hence, the future deployment of the skin buttons is a promise.
Here is the link to the original paper
at SCM UIST 2014
This blog is set up mainly for the Interactive Devices unit at the University of Bristol. This is used to post my reviews, ideas and works during the course. However, this is also a place where I experss my free opinion about anything realated to technologies including new devices, researches and similar stuff.
As a business student at the University of London and computing student at the University of Bristol, My thinkings are mixtures of science and economy. Hence, this blog is written with the same style.
