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New tech turns your skin into a touchscreen for your smartwatch
The Verge ^ | Ben Popper

Posted on 05/06/2016 11:57:16 AM PDT by BenLurkin

Future Interfaces Group, a research lab within Carnegie Mellon University, released a look at a novel solution to this problem: making the skin on your arm and hand act like a touchscreen for your smartwatch.

The system uses a signal-emitting ring worn on the finger to communicate with a sensing band attached to the watch. When the finger wearing the ring touches the skin, a high-frequency electrical signal spreads across your arm. It uses the distance between the ring and four pairs of electrodes in the watchband to triangulate the position of your finger in 2D space. "The great thing about SkinTrack is that it’s not obtrusive; watches and rings are items that people already wear every day," said Yang Zhang, a first-year Ph.D. student at CMU who worked on the technology.

...

You can drag apps off the watch and place them on parts of your arm, creating shortcuts back to the app. Put your Twitter app on your elbow, for example, and you can quickly access it with a tap on that spot from the finger wearing the ring. Adding all that new real estate as part of your touchscreen also opens up possibilities for the watch as a gaming device, for example a long pull on the slingshot in Angry Birds.

The watch can also recognize hot key commands. Trace an "N" on your hand to open up your news app, for example, or an "S" to silence a phone call. Skin and screen can also be used to indicate different modes, with a screen swipe performing a slow scroll through an address book, and a skin swipe activating a rapid scroll.

(Excerpt) Read more at theverge.com ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet
KEYWORDS: smartwatch

1 posted on 05/06/2016 11:57:17 AM PDT by BenLurkin
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To: BenLurkin

And if you leave it on porn too long, it burns the image into your skin.


2 posted on 05/06/2016 12:01:38 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: BenLurkin

I could be a walking advertisement. I could sell advertising skin space by the square inch. I could live well off of my belly space ads alone!


3 posted on 05/06/2016 12:04:32 PM PDT by BipolarBob (I'm so open minded that you should only think like me.)
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To: BenLurkin
Children of the Sun
4 posted on 05/06/2016 12:37:18 PM PDT by Berlin_Freeper
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To: BenLurkin

Really a dumb use of technology.


5 posted on 05/06/2016 12:46:00 PM PDT by I want the USA back (The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it. Orwell.)
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To: BenLurkin

Play a game and you’ll likely rub the skin raw. Does it come with a tube of ointment?


6 posted on 05/06/2016 12:48:56 PM PDT by Scooter100
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To: BenLurkin

It will be a major fad and everyone will want to use it, only to find out that prolonged usage can lead to cancer.


7 posted on 05/06/2016 12:51:01 PM PDT by PJBankard
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To: PJBankard

and hairy palms.


8 posted on 05/06/2016 1:07:39 PM PDT by mykroar ("Never believe anything until it has been officially denied." - Otto von Bismarck)
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To: BenLurkin

9 posted on 05/06/2016 1:09:56 PM PDT by Sgt_Schultze (If a border fence isn't effective, why is there a border fence around the White House?)
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To: BenLurkin

So Michiganders can show people where they are from by pointing at a specific spot on their hand?


10 posted on 05/06/2016 2:13:37 PM PDT by Hegemony Cricket (The emperor < still > has no pedigree.)
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