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 ")

Wearable Energy Harvester
'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.' Frank Herbert, 1965.

Video Manicuring ala Schismatrix
'The program raced up the screen one scan line at a time' - Bruce Sterling

Tailsitter Drone Aircraft For SAR
'...it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair.' - RH Roman, 1929.

Iron Beam Laser Under Development To Shoot Down Missiles With Lasers
'It was sweeping round swiftly and steadily, this flaming death, this invisible, inevitable sword of heat.' - HG Wells, 1989.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

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

Wearable Energy Harvester
'... he had tightened the chest to gain maximum pumping action from the motion of breathing.'

Drones Participate In Buddhist Rites
'...a prayer wheel swung into view and began spinning at a furious pace.'

Anna Indiana AI Singer-Songwriter
'She is a personality-construct, a congeries of software agents'

Video Manicuring ala Schismatrix
'The program raced up the screen one scan line at a time'

'Feel the AGI' OpenAI Leader Now OpenWorship
'And are all the people willing to be governed by a machine?'

NASA Tests Prototype Europa Lander
Why have legs if they don't walk around?

Tailsitter Drone Aircraft For SAR
'...it was so easy for me to remain motionless in midair.'

Forward CarePod The AI Doctor's Office
'It's an old model,' Rawlins said. 'I'm not sure what to do.'

Mika The Robot-Boss
'the robot-boss was busy at the lip of the new lode instructing and egging the men on to greater speed...'

Yamaha Motoroid 2 No Handlebars Self-Balancing Motorcycle
'He rode the bike with an intense lack of physical grace...'

San Francisco Autobus
'THE autobus turned silently down the wide street...'

Should Your Car Decide If You Can Drive?
'Okay. Maybe the car was right...'

Lucid Dreams On Demand From Prophetic and Card79
'the peeper did not operate by virtue of its machinery alone, but by the reaction of the brain and the body of its user...'

Honda UNI-ONE Hands-Free Wheelchair Follows 100 Year-Old Design
'Noiselessly, on rubber-tired wheels, they journeyed...'

EBS-260 Handjet Free Hand Dot Matrix Printer
'McKie held a chalf-memory stick over the dusted surface.'

Sensitive, Soft Robot Skin
'...tinted material that had all the feel and appearance of human flesh and epidermis.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.