Friday, November 4, 2011

WORLD WITHOUT MONITORS OR KEYBOARDS: THE LIFE OF TOUCH


A few months ago I was looking at a child interacting with magazine as though it was an ipad. The toodler had trouble making the page turn if she only knew that she could simply turn the pages with her fingers.

At Carnegie Mellon student Chris Harrison explained to me, gadgets with screens the size of  oyster cracker have inspired new ways to "steal" everyday surfaces to replace the computer screen. By using tiny projectors that sense your every move, you'll soon be able to read and write email on a wall or table top. Or surf the web on the palm of your hand or the leg of your jeans.
In a project with Microsoft, he's also developed "Skinput." It is a bio-accousic sensor that converts the tapping of your forearm or fingertips into commands for a music player or video game. So along with new advances in voice-recognition software, it won't be long before the mouse, keyboard and game controller are replaced by the snap of a finger and a spoken command.



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