hOwGee.en.: My wall is a graphics tablet

Friday, December 08, 2006

My wall is a graphics tablet

exploits

Researchers from Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France and the UK have developed a system that can turn walls, tables, and other surfaces ... into virtual touchpads or keyboards.

The Tai-Chi system(Tangible Acoustic Interfaces for Computer-Human Interaction) uses acoustic sensors connected to the edge of a surface that are able to track the vibrations of another object touching it. Tiny piezoelectric sensors allow to distinguish two objects touching it at the same time. There is also an identification method: each contact point can be identified thanks to a database of "vibration fingerprints".

"One advantage of the system is that for little cost you can have a much larger touch-sensitive area. The whole surface of your desk could become your keyboard and mouse-pad."

Source: NewsScientistTech, last week.

Pour ceux qui ne savent pas: Piezoelectricity is the ability of crystals to generate a voltage in response to applied mechanical stress. The word is derived from the Greek piezein, which means to squeeze or press. The piezoelectric effect is reversible in that piezoelectric crystals, when subjected to an externally applied voltage, can change shape by a small amount. (For instance, the deformation is about 0.1% of the original dimension in PZT.) The effect finds useful applications such as the production and detection of sound, generation of high voltages, electronic frequency generation, microbalance, and ultra fine focusing of optical assemblies.

Labels: exploits