Researchers Turn Tables and Walls Into "Scratch Input" Surfaces 54
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's HCI Institute have developed a new input technology that allows mobile devices to use surfaces they rest on, like tables, for gestural finger input. This is achieved with some clever acoustic tricks — basically taking advantage of high frequency sound propagation through dense materials. Their video highlights some neat applications, such as controlling an MP3 player by scratching on a wall and muting a cell phone by scratching on a table. Further details are available in the academic paper (PDF)."
Not new... (Score:3, Informative)
It seems they basically reinvented what Sensitive Objects [sensitiveobject.fr] (and probably others) already does...
It seems hard to find on their site a specific mention of gestures, but I had an interview there and specifically asked if they were able to track "drags" and not only "clicks" and they said they were able to follow a finger on the surface.
Also, look for Tai-Chi (Tangible Acoustic Interfaces for Computer-Human Interaction).
Re:So now PDAs... (Score:2, Informative)