The Skinput, despite its double-entendre-loaded name, is not, in fact, the latest in teledildonics (LINK IS NSFW!); it’s bioacoustic gesture recognition. I know – that helped a lot. I’ll explain properly now. The concept is to use your own body as an input surface for your gadgets, specifically, your iPhone. Your iPhone is a pretty amazing little thing, isn’t it? But imagine if you could take the touchscreen keyboard and, oh, project it onto your arm?
The Skinput is being developed by Chris Harrison, a Carnegie Mellon University grad student and former Microsoft intern, and Mircrosoft researcher Dan Morris. It works by using a pico-projector which displays a virtual keyboard or number pad on your skin, plus an armband with sensors that pick up the acoustic vibrations produced on your arm when you tap it with your finger.
To illustrate the potential applications, I want you to do something for me, OK? Take the thumb and middle finger of one of your hands and tap the fingertips together. Done? Great: you just answered a phone call. You could text-message someone, scroll through menus or select music tracks by simply tapping a spot in your palm or on your arm, and you’d never have to take your phone out of your pocket to do so. Everything is connected via Bluetooth. Further expanded applications could involve tapping these virtual buttons to open your front door or turn on your TV.
It’s Predator and Ponter’s companion and the Transmetropolitan phone trait. It’s one step closer to a cyborg, grinder, Doktor Sleepless future. This is nuts, when you think about it. But this is The Future. Never mind the flying cars and personal jetpacks… well, OK… so there are personal jetpacks now. And low-orbit commercial spaceflight is also becoming a reality, but still – how amazing is this?
It won’t be available to consumers for a good 2 to 7 years, but if the prototype alone is this cool, imagine what the final product will be like. Much of the development will be in getting towards 100% accuracy when tapping the keyboard on your arm. I still can’t believe I just said “keyboard on your arm.”
Check out the video here.
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