HCI
It’s hot! Jump into “The Pool”
by Paul on Jul.17, 2010, under Arts and Crafts, Good Idea, HCI
A great example of complexity from simplicity.
NeuroSky: Another brainwave interface.
by Paul on Jun.21, 2010, under Good Idea, HCI, Interfaces, hardware
With fewer pickups and sensors than the Emotiv EPOC headset (Emotiv Epoch Continued… & Emotiv Epoch) the NeuroSky headset offers the simplicity of a single brainwave pickup on the forehead and Bluetooth audio.
BiDi
by Paul on May.23, 2010, under HCI, Interfaces, Video
From the MIT Media Lab is BiDi, short for “bidirectional”. This display can “see” what happens in front of it. For more information see: New Scientist Article, Details.
In the Lumino post, we saw how object placed on a Microsoft Surface project patterns of dark and light that can be used for 3D interaction with the computer. According to Microsoft, the Microsoft Surface “uses cameras and image recognition in the infrared spectrum to recognize different types of objects such as fingers, tagged items and shapes”.
BiDi, then, is an enhancement of that concept and extends the interaction depth to 50 cm.
Now, add multi-colored gloves …
Skinput: Your Skin as an Input Surface.
by Paul on Apr.07, 2010, under Good Idea, HCI, Interfaces, Sensors
Is this the next step toward really useful wearable computing? Yes, there are other projected keyboards, but this seems like it would work better. Making the projected display sunlight readable may be a challenge relative to battery power requirements (It always boils down to batteries, doesn’t it?). The acoustic sensing requires the skin taps and makes a mouse-like pointing device problematic.
Why not just project on a flexible multi-touch surface?
MIT Media Lab Does It Again: Sixth Sense
by Paul on Jan.31, 2010, under Good Idea, HCI, Interfaces, Video
No, it doesn’t see dead people (not yet). It’s a wearable gestural interface.
Non-contact HCI: 3D E-Field Mouse
by Paul on Apr.28, 2009, under HCI, Interfaces, Sensors
These guys have come up with a really neat 3D electrostatic or E-field mouse. The whole thing is a few chips with a PIC microcontroller (one with USB support) as the brain. The big brains at the MIT Media Lab had a smaller implementation going in 1998 (MIT Media Lab Device Video and web page). Still, pretty damn neat.
3D Computer Interface from Free Flow on Vimeo.
