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
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