http://dlandinichi.blogspot.com/2011/03/paper-reading-15-eddi-interactive-topic.html
A Reconfigurable Ferromagnetic Input Device
Johnathan Hook, Newcastle University
Stuart Taylor, Alex Butler, Nicolas Villar, and Shahram Izadi, Microsoft Research Cambridge
Paper presentation not specified therein, but presumably UIST 2009.
Summary
This paper describes a general sensing technique using ferric materials over sensor coils to allow computers to detect manipulations of said ferric materials. The goal is to provide totally reconfigurable input devices, which could be customized at will for any user or any application.
I don't feel that the specific technical details, which are provided, are of particular interest to the likely audience of this blog post. One area of interest, however, was their ideas for future work which were remarkably specific. These included a tangible electronic music sequencer and joysticks that could sense the intensity of grip, as well as the less unique haptic feedback possibilities.
Discussion
While a completely reconfigurable user interface is something of a Holy Grail, at least in theory, but I don't see enough here yet to be convinced that the authors are Galahad. I think the most important future direction for the work would be to get any proof of concept program running using a completely custom interface that is reconfigurable while in use (note that both given examples are pre-set). That would take this from interesting sideshow to a big leap forward.
The big weakness of this paper was that both P.O.C.s relied on the ferrofluid bladder and not on general iron objects.
No comments:
Post a Comment