Body Interfacing

One of the newest invention ideas in interface devices is Skinput.

This invention allows the sufaces of your body to be used as a touchscreen.

This is how it works.

An armband projects the image of a menu or keyboard onto your hand or forearm. This armband also contains an bio-acoustic sensor that can detect and analyze sound frequencies.

Because of bone density, joints, and soft tissue, different locations on the body have different acoustic properties.

When you tap your finger on different parts of your body it creates a unique frequency based on the specific area.

Skinput can detect what part of a projected image you are touching and in turn can transmit a wireless signal to a computer, smart phone or other device.

Skinput was created by the project team of Desney Tan, a senior researcher in the Visulization and Interaction Area at Microsoft Research; Dan Morris, a researcher in the Computational User Experiences at Microsoft Research; and Chris Harrison, a third year Ph.D student in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.