We know that data input via touch will have to evolve at some point. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University believe that a more sophisticated system that can distinguish between different parts of the finger could be one approach.
Called TapSense, the technology can tell the difference between the tap of a fingertip, the pad of the finger, a fingernail and a knuckle. The researchers said that this technology could be handy, for example, when typing on a virtual keyboard. "For instance, users might capitalize letters simply by tapping with a fingernail instead of a finger tip, or might switch to numerals by using the pad of a finger, rather toggling to a different set of keys," a press release states.
Similarly a painting app could leverage such a technology to control different color palettes or brushes. We could also imagine that this could be interesting for touch games. "TapSense basically doubles the input bandwidth for a touchscreen," said Chris Harrison from Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute. "This is particularly important for smaller touchscreens, where screen real estate is limited. If we can remove mode buttons from the screen, we can make room for more content or can make the remaining buttons larger."
There was no information whether this technology will actually make it into actual products. However, the integration would be fairly easy: TapSense uses a microphone and analyzes the sounds made by tapping on the touch screen surface with different parts of the finger. The researchers claim that their technology is able to distinguish between the four types of finger inputs with 95 percent accuracy.
No comments:
Post a Comment