Monday, April 19, 2010

Microsoft's Skinput turns hands, arms into buttons

A graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University (former intern at Microsoft Research) named Harrison has developed a working prototype of a system called Skinput. Skinput allows a person's hand and forearm to turn into a keyboard and screen. This system is Harrison's ideal world for mobile phones. Using this skinput a person could tap their thumb and middle finger together to answer a call; touch their forearm to go tot he next track on a music player; or flick the center of their palm to select a menu. These movements are customizable and is transferred through a Bluetooth connection that is placed in person's pocket. Also with a pico-projector, the Skinput system could also display an image of a digital keyboard on a person's forearm so they will be allowed to send out text messages by tapping his or her arm in certain places without pulling out the phone from ones purse/pocket. Harrison believes it is just like an iPhone right in your palm. This system is still under development and will not be completely on the market until 2-7 years, and will have to go under lots of accuracy tests.

I think the idea of this is very cool, however personally i do not think it will be that convenient. Many movements made in everyday life could be mixed in with the Skinput. People that uses it will take awhile to adjust to it, and lets just hope they don't look stupid using it.

4 comments:

Derek White said...

Although this technology sounds pretty interesting, why don't we use the brains in this technology towards something more useful and productive in society. We spend so much time trying to create more consumer based advanced products when we should focus on solving problems with technology. We could use these intelligent people wisely by having them create advanced prosthetics that could replace lost limbs. Just throwing that out there.

lizaj said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
lizaj said...

I agree with Derek. This invention sounds new, fun and interesting, but the funding and research that is going to be put into it could be spent on so, so many other things more beneficial to mankind. And it is beyond unnecessary. How is a cellphone/ipod/laptop/gps all-in-one not enough? Do we need the next level? No! We should be happy where we are, because if not when will we ever be? People want more. It is their right to acquire until the end of time, and part of what America fundamentally is, but...it's still pointless.

Jodi Miller said...

I'm getting "Inspector Gadget" images from this article. That would be pretty cool, but I have to agree with Derek. Isn't there something that this technology can be better used for?

One possibility would be a system like this for the elderly, kind of like those "Life Alert" things where they press a button if they fall or something, and emergency assistance is immediately sent to their homes. That could be a better use of this technology, but that's just throwing out an idea.