New Technology Enables Touch Interaction on Everyday Objects, Liquids and Humans
Posted on May 5, 2012
Touché is a new sensing technique developed by a team of researchers at Disney Research, Pittsburgh, and Carnegie Mellon University. Instead of sensing electrical signals at a single frequency, like the typical touchscreen, Touché monitors capacitive signals across a broad range of frequencies. This Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing (SFCS) makes it possible to not only detect a "touch event," but to recognize complex configurations of the hand or body doing the touching.
Making sense of all of the SFCS information requires analyzing hundreds of data points. The researchers say that as microprocessors have become steadily faster and less expensive, it now is feasible to use SFCS in touch interfaces.
Here are some of the possible applications of Touche:
- A smart doorknob that knows whether to lock or unlock based on how it is grasped
- A smartphone that silences itself if the user holds a finger to her lips
- A chair that adjusts room lighting based on recognizing if a user is reclining or leaning forward
- Body gestures to control devices, such as such as touching fingers, grasping hands and covering ears to control a music player
- Liquids that are touch sensitive
- A cereal bowl that alerts you if you are using the wrong utensil
- A sensing sofa that turns on the television or the lights