CMU researcher Chris Harrison’s Skinput is an amazing new technology. It’s a new interface concept that just makes sense, and to top it off, it’s also pretty darn cool. Input devices haven’t changed much in the last few decades. We still use mice and we still use keyboards. If Harrison has his way, we might just someday be using our own skin as an input device.
Harrison’s concept uses the body to sense touch inputs. When a particular part of the body is tapped, a sensor on the upper arm can detect where exactly the tap originated from, either the fingertips or the forearm. This is done by sensing the vibrations that are generated by each tap.
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
Once this is paired with a projector, you’ve got a whole new input device: your own body.
Skinput is set to be presented at a conference in April.
[via Core77]
Written by range on March 5th, 2010 with no comments.
Read more articles on Computers and carnegie mellon and chris harrison and computing and future tech and input and interactive and just plain fun and projector and skin and skinput and strange + wonderful and tactile and touch.
This colorful saucer-shaped creature is the coolest lighting fixture I’ve seen in a long time. The Yantouch Jellyfish definitely resembles the body of the gooey undersea creature that it’s named for, but lights up in many more colors than its cnidarian doppelgangers.
The curvaceous lamp is loaded up with bright RGB LEDs that can change to any of 16 million unique colors and brightness levels through the use of a unique touch-panel interface. It actually works sort of like the color palette control you might find in photo-editing and painting software. Check out how it works in the video below:
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
In addition to fixed-colors, you can set the Jellyfish to a color flow mode with a variable fade speed between the colors of your choice. And you can switch off the front side illumination, leaving only the Jellyfish’s clear “tentacle” structure which provides a cool backlighting.
When powered off, the Jellyfish maintains a stealthy look, with a sleek black top and white bottom.
While I haven’t found any U.S. retailers for the Yantouch yet, the have numerous Taiwanese and Japanese retailers as well as an French retailer listed up on their website. Pricing in Japan is set at ¥14,800 (appx. $160 USD).
[Yantouch Jellyfish via Impress Watch (translated)]
Written by technabob on January 5th, 2010 with no comments.
Read more articles on color and colorful and design and interactive and jellyfish and led and rgb and strange + wonderful and taiwan and touch.
This interesting new device isn’t just any ordinary remote control. It’s actually a multifunctional RF remote that can be used as a mouse, a joystick, or a remote for your HTPC. And it’s got multitouch support too!
The Elan Smart Remote (model ESR-8020) features a pair of capacitive touch pads, which can be used to interact with any standard PC software. The remote has five modes: mouse, keyboard, joystick, presentation and handwriting recognition. While each pad appears to only sense a single finger press, the pair together can be used to produce Windows 7 multitouch gestures. Flip the remote over, and it’s a full-function AV remote for controlling Windows Media Center apps. Check out the video below to see the Elan Smart Remote in action.
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
Elan plans on showing off the remote at the upcoming CES 2010 show in Las Vegas. No word on pricing or a release date yet.
Written by technabob on December 26th, 2009 with no comments.
Read more articles on 2.4ghz and CES 2010 and Gadgets and Technology and computing and elan and future tech and multitouch and remote and remote control and rf and touch and windows 7.
With all the buzz about tablet PCs like the soon-to-be-maybe-released CrunchPad JooJoo and sure-to-be-possible-someday Apple tablet, it was only a matter of time before the market will fill up with a variety of tablets and interfaces vying for a piece of pie in the great tablet landgrab of 2010. The upcoming Blump’it takes a slightly different approach from the others, providing a software interface for touchscreen tablets that’ll work on any operating system, instead of a proprietary hardware device.
Blump’it is designed to provide an easy, fingertip-optimized interface for accessing Internet applications on wireless or 3G-connected touchscreen device. From what I’ve seen so far, it really just looks like a glorified touch menu for your web browser, but maybe I’m missing something.
To make it a bit more compelling, Blump’it is distributing an unbranded “lab” tablet with a 10.2″ LCD touchscreen (1024×600 resolution), running on an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz CPU and a Linux OS/Blump’it interface combo. The tablet measures in at a rather hefty 24.7mm (.972″) thick, and weighs 950 grams (just about 2 pounds) – with the rechargeable battery pack in place. The tablet includes both 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and CDMA 3G connectivity – which means that if you’re on a GSM network – you’re out of luck for now.
To see the Blump’it interface and hardware in action, check out this video from the guys at netbooknews… (to cut to the chase, skip ahead to 1:55 for the hardware, and 4:50 for the interface).
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
Did you notice the Blump’it virtual keyboard is an AZERTY, not a QWERTY? That’s because the tablet comes from France. I’m assuming you’ll have a choice of keyboards once it’s released worldwide – if not, that sure would be silly. Interested? Blump’it is taking pre-orders for the tablet now at their website for €499 or $699 (USD). If you’re interested in checking out the software interface on your own computer, they plan on releasing a Firefox plug-in sometime in January and you can register for the Alpha here. Rumor has it, they’re also working on a Chrome version.
Written by technabob on December 19th, 2009 with no comments.
Read more articles on Gadgets and Internet and Software and Technology and Web and blump'it and computing and interface and mobile tech and portable and tablet and touch and touchscreen.
As I sit here in front of my HP Touchsmart PC, I can interact with many applications using my fingertips, but due to the size of the computer’s 25.5″ display, HP had to go with an optical sensor-based multitouch screen, which is limited to detecting only 2 fingers at a time. Now, a display company has figured out a way to build large multitouch screens that can detect all of your digits at once using a grid of infrared sensors.
Developed by Germany’s Elektrosil and Citron, dreaMTouch can actually detect up to 32 simultaneous touch points on displays as large as 82″ diagonal. The dreaMTouch can even handle all of those tracking points without any worry about such things as your fingers crossing paths – which can be a problem with technologies like the NextWindow touchscreen tech that HP uses in their Touchsmart desktops.
The system is designed to layer on top of existing display technologies, adding a 4mm thick piece of laminated safety glass in front of the screen. Data is then sent to any computer using a standard USB interface.
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
The dreaMTouch can even detect the size and location of objects placed in the touch area – which means it could be used to build tangible interaction apps like the ones you find on Microsoft’s Surface. Sweet! Plus it interfaces directly with TUIO, a popular open source standard for interacting with multitouch applications.
No word on how and when you’ll be able to get your hands on one of these, so for now, we’ll just have to sit back and wait and live with our primitive old 2 finger multitouch computers. Waaah.
[via Multitouch.nl]
Written by technabob on December 15th, 2009 with no comments.
Read more articles on Technology and computing and dreamtouch and infrared and interactive and interface and multitouch and overlay and tangible and touch and touchscreen and video.
Remember those gesture control gloves Tom Cruise wore in Minority Report? Well, starting in 2010, you’ll be able to work similar magic with your fingertips thanks to the new Peregrine gesture glove.
The unusual computer controller features over 30 touch points which can be used to interact with your games and other software like you’ve never done before. Each glove can be custom calibrated to your own unique touch and hand size, and each touch point can be mapped to your computer keys using the included configuration software. Since the glove emulates keys on your keyboard, you can play just about any game with it – although it’s probably best for RTS and MMORPG games. But I’d still like to try playing MAME with one.
The military-grade glove attaches to your computer with a breakaway magnetic connector pod that’s designed to breakaway in case you get too raucous when thrashing around. And since it’s a standard HID-compliant USB device you can use it with Windows, Mac OS and Linux computers without a problem. (though the configuration software is only coming for Windows and Macs).
Check out the videos below to see the Peregrine in action:
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
Peregrine expects to start shipping the glove in early 2010 for $129 (USD) – $20 off of the regular price, and you can pre-order yours here.
Written by technabob on December 14th, 2009 with no comments.
Read more articles on Finger and InterAction and Technology and computing and game and gesture and glove and interactive and interface and peregrine and touch and video games and wearable.
The introduction of iPhone in 2007, changed mobile industry dynamics in a major way.
It introduced extremely usable full touch UI, and shifted the competition from innovation in hardware, to innovation in software, services, user interface and usability of mobile devices.
At that point in time both, Nokia and Samsung, were at about the same place, in regards to this shift towards full touch UIs. Both had their own proprietary OSes (S40 for Nokia, own real time OS for Samsung)for their feature phones, both of them dabbled with smartphones.
Well, we can say that Nokia more then dabbled in smartphones, their N-Series handsets were pretty impressive, and had some good sales. They also had a major potential hit – Nokia N95 – about to ship. But, overall, I’d say that the smartphone category in the beginning of 2007, was a small part of Nokia business, with S40 and S30 devices being the major cash cows.
Samsung’s reaction to iPhone
When the iPhone announcement came, Samsung’s reaction at the time seemed like unwarranted, thoughtless haste, even panic.
Samsung announced their first iPhone response device – F700 Ultra Smart- within a month from the iPhone’s launch. And, judging from lack of leaks and the lead time between announcement and shipping of F700 (about 10 months) – I suspect that in February 2007, it was not much more then an early design prototype, hacked between Jan. 9th (iPhone launch date) and the start of 3GSM show in Feb. 2007.
All Samsung full touch phones, launched in late 2007 – early 2008 (F700, F490, Armani P520) were pretty lame and awful to use. As was the Croix interface used to run them.
But Samsung kept pouring resources into full touch R&D, and things evolved rapidly since then. The next generation of Samsung full touch UI, now called TouchWiz was unveiled in February 2008, at MWC (former 3GSM) show in Barcelona. With the first device running it, Samsung F480 still selling briskly today, reaching a total sales volume of over 9 million units recently.
In the meantime, Samsung continued it’s work on touchphones, churning one full touch handset after another, selling 10 million of them in 2008. And it went into a full touch phone overdrive this year, shipping more 40 million touch devices in the first 11 months.
Samsung also continues to evolve the TouchWiz UI, separating it from the underlying proprietary OS, porting it to Windows Mobile, Symbian, Android and opening it to third party developers. First, only for Widgets, but soon, when TouchWiz 3 comes in the form of Samsung Bada, for native applications as well.
Nokia, Touch UI and the cost of ignoring it for S40 feature phones
Nokia, on the other hand, decided to play it cool, when they heard about the iPhone.
They took their time to think about it, decided not to bother wasting a lot of time with touch development for S40 feature phones, and chose S60/Symbian as their platform of transition to Touch. And spent the next 20 months patching S60 UI to work with finger touch, readying their first full touch S60 device (5800 XM) for the market.
Nokia also went on, to create N97. Which, I suspect, was supposed to run the same S60 5th edition as 5800 XM. Only competing UIs moved so far ahead in the meantime, that it was embarrassing to have it on a flagship device. So new features – like live desktop, web runtimes, etc; were added, making the handset’s hardware only marginally able to cope with increased software requirements.
So did Nokia make a mistake, by stopping S40 development too early, ignoring the opportunity to give it touch overhaul, and concentrating on bringing touch UI only to it’s smartphone platform.
In the short term, the answer is definitely yes.
If you listen to Nokia, they are telling us that they are doing great. They’ve sold 10+ million touch devices in a year. But Samsung’s numbers are telling us otherwise. They’ve sold 40+ million touch handsets in the same time. They are beating Nokia to pulp, everywhere related to touch, and are starting to make serious inroads elsewhere too.
Samsung Star/Preston are outselling Nokia 5800 XM by at least 2 to 1 margin. For Nokia 5230 and 5530 XM it’s too early to tell, but preliminary indications are that Samsung Corby will outsell them by at least 3:1. It turns out, that at EUR 150-300 price points, consumers do not care much whether your handset is a smart or dumb phone. They just want a nice touch UI, and with a dedicated proprietary featurephone OS, Samsung is faster, leaner and better equipped to provide that.
In the high end smartphones, Samsung i8910 HD, WinMo Omnia family and Android devices should be able to more then hold their own against Nokia N97, N97 mini and N900, too.
In the long run, Nokia should be OK.
They have Maemo, which is changing the ways Nokia designs advanced handsets, like N900. Nokia has almost figured it out, how to do a modern touch UI, and should have one even for a mass market Symbian devices, in a year or so. With QT, they will soon have what seems to be a very attractive offer for mobile developers. And Nokia has been heavily throwing resources at OVI service/portal for two years now. Eventually they are bound to make something work over there.
But in the meantime, by drastically underestimating the consumer demand for full touch devices, and the speed this category will take off, Nokia has given an opening to Samsung. 2 years ago, Nokia’s top spot among handset makers seemed unassailable. Samsung was able to grow to #2 only at the expense of underperforming smaller rivals like Motorola, Sony Ericsson, and Siemens Mobile before that.
Today, boosted mainly by the success with it’s touchphones, Samsung is hitting Nokia on every front it can. And, as last quarter numbers, and 2010 forecasts show, is starting to chip away at Nokia’s market share too.
Samsung still has ways to go, but that “biggest cellphone maker in the world” title, does not seem so unattainable anymore.
It will not happen anytime soon, but, especially if Fins do not get their act together real quick, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see Nokia and Samsung going neck to neck for the #1 spot in mobile industry, in 2 or 3 years.
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Written by Staska on December 1st, 2009 with no comments.
Read more articles on Feature and Nokia and Nokia S40 and Samsung and Wireless and featured and touch.
I for one like my computer keyboards to be big enough for my fat fingers to maneuver without typos. But if you’re adept with using your thumbs to type on your Blackberry, you might enjoy this new accessory for your Windows PC.
This compact wireless handheld keyboard feature a tiny QWERTY keypad like you’d find on your mobile phone, and lets you transmit keystrokes to your computer from up to 30 feet away. There’s also a little wireless trackpad so you can control the cursor from across the room. The keypad also has a bright backlight for use in darkened rooms.
Just plug in the included RF receiver USB dongle, charge up the controller, and you’ll be e-mailing from across the room in no time. Check out the video clip below to see the keyboard in action.
Click to View Embedded Video Clip
At first glance, I struggled to understand why you’d want a keyboard this small, but then I realized it might be good for doing presentations, as well as for controlling an HTPC setup if you want to surf the web on your big screen television. Or maybe for when your cat wants to use the computer. The wireless keyboard/touchpad is available over at USB Geek for $62 (USD).
Written by technabob on November 23rd, 2009 with no comments.
Read more articles on Gadgets and Keyboard and QWERTY and Technology and USB and Windows and Wireless and computing and home entertainment and mobile tech and rf and touch and trackpad.
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