Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
 |
FingerIO Active Sonar Smartphone Finger Tracking
FingerIO cleverly uses your smartphone's own speaker to emit an inaudible ultrasonic wave. That signal then bounces off your finger, and the “echoes” are recorded by your phone's microphones and are used to calculate the finger’s location in space. FingerIO was developed by University of Washington computer scientists and electrical engineers,
(FingerIO active sonar finger tracking video)
Using sound waves to track finger motion offers several advantages over cameras — which don’t work without line-of-sight or when the device is hidden by fabric or another obstructions — and other technologies like radar that require both custom sensor hardware and greater computing power, said senior author and UW assistant professor of computer science and engineering Shyam Gollakota.But standard sonar echoes are weak and typically not accurate enough to track finger motion at high resolution. Errors of a few centimeters would make it impossible to differentiate between writing individual letters or subtle hand gestures.
So the UW researchers used “Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing” (used in cellular telecommunications and WiFi), allowing for tracking phase changes in the echoes and correcting for any errors in the finger location.
Fans of beloved science fiction author Douglas Adams recall the gesture-based interface used in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from a generation earlier, and can't wait to use this idea on their smartphones:
A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wave bands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program.Zaphod waved a hand and the channel switched again.
Update 15-Jul-2016: Here's an earlier reference to the idea of a gesture interface from Samuel R. Delany's Babel-17 (1968):
Rydra shook her head. She passed her hand before the filing crystal. In the concaved screen at the base, words flashed. She stilled her fingers. "Navigator-Two. . . ." She turned her hand. "Navigator-One. . . ." She paused and ran her hand in a different direction.". . . male, male, male, female...Rydra watched, her hand drifting through centimeters over the crystal's face. The names on the screen flashed back and forth.
Rydra's hand came down on the crystal face, and the name glowed on the screen.
(Read more about the filing crystal)
End update.
Via KurzweilAI.
Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 3/18/2016)
Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |
Would
you like to contribute a story tip?
It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add
it here.
Comment/Join discussion ( 0 )
Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")
Has Musk Given Up On Full Self Driving (FSD)?
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...' - Charles Stross, 2007.
Prufrock-3 'The Monster' Ready To Launch
Just go for it.
Hybrid Wind Solar Devices
'...the combined Wind-Suncatcher, like a spray of tulips mounted fanwise.' - Simpson Stokes, 1937.
BeamBike Solar Power Canopy For Electric Bikes
'The slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector...' - David Brin, 1990.
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
Current News
Miss Alabama Beauty Contest Offers Different Standards
'...they moved with the ease of dandelion puffs.'
Has Musk Given Up On Full Self Driving (FSD)?
'...some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre...'
Prufrock-3 'The Monster' Ready To Launch
Just go for it.
Drones In Vast Airborne Grids
'These pods were programmed to hang in space in a hexagonal grid pattern...'
Starship Special Edition For Lunar Shuttle
Love those special edition spaceships.
Capturing Asteroids With Nets
'...the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches a swift ball in his cap.'
Project Hyperion - Generation Ship Designers Needed!
'We have decided that it shall be but one ship... it must contain everything needed to take us through the generations.'
AI Welfare Position At Anthropic Filled By Human
'You’re the robopsychologist of the plant, so you’re to study the robot itself...'
Marslink Proposed By SpaceX
'It was the heart of the Solar System's communication line...'
Simple Way To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'... designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
Wood-Panelled LignoSat Launched
'The Consul remembered his first glimpse of the kilometer-long treeship...'
Laser-Beam Welding In Orbital Factories
'His contract with Space Industries required him to work summers in their orbital factory.'
'Iceberg House' Of Travis Kelce Reflects Science Fiction Of Past Century
'The basement was huge... carved deep into the rock that folded up to underlie the ridge...'
Mechazilla Arms Catch A Falling Starship, But Check Out SF Landing-ARMS
'...the rocket’s landing-arms automatically unfolded.'
A System To Defeat AI Face Recognition
'...points and patches of light... sliding all over their faces in a programmed manner that had been designed to foil facial recognition systems.'
Robot Hand Separate From Robot
'The crawling, exploring object was V-Stephen's surgeon-hand...'
