"Skinput" Turns Your Body Into Your I/O

kkleiner writes "Skinput is a system from Carnegie Mellon's Chris Harrison that monitors acoustic signals on your arm to translate gestures and taps into input commands. Just by touching different points on your arm, hand, or fingers you can tell your portable device to change volume, answer a call, or turn itself off. Even better, Harrison can couple Skinput with a pico projector so that you can see a graphic interface on your arm and use the acoustic signals to control it. The project is set to be presented at this year's SIGCHI conference in April, but you can check it out now in several video demonstrations."

Old News

[camperdave]

This is old news. I've been able to lower the volume of devices by sticking my fingers in my ears for ages now.

Re:Old News

[padrepio]

Yes but with Skinput, I would use my wife's keyboard and dual display more often.

Re:

[AliasMarlowe]

Yes but with Skinput, I would use my wife's keyboard and dual display more often.

And in return, she might use your joystick...

Re:

[StikyPad]

The difference between theory and practice is often much larger in practice than in theory.

Re:

[svtdragon]

You can always interface with her primary or secondary ports directly. They're great I/O/I/O/I/O/I/O mechanisms.

Re:

[Nadaka]

Be careful though. The secondary port comes with a nonstandard interface and may refuse to accept your input.

Re:

[rehtonAesoohC]

And the method you described works wonders with all types of human interaction noises, IE: nagging wife. Skinput does not.

Re:

[cayenne8]

Brings to mind a new slant on a old saying...

"Tap it once and your trying to refresh the screen....tap it more than three times and your playing with it..."

Re:

[eleuthero]

...and let's not forget P. Hamilton for his modification of this later on in the Commonwealth series with his nanotech tattoo things.

Sigh

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

This is one of those times I wish the mod system rewarded 'yo mama' jokes.

Re:

[mcgrew]

The system doesn't reward you, the moderators do. And they're not supposed to reward YOU, they're supposed to reward your comment (by making it more visible). If a "yo momma" joke is truly funny, it will be modded +5, Funny. It won't give you any karma, but your post won't be in vain, either.

Congrats

[Locke2005]

Best excuse for getting a girl geek to touch your "junk" evah!

Signals coming in too fast.

[Thyamine]

Buffer overrun. You have submitted too many commands at one time. Please try again.

"Honey, what are you doing in there?"

"Uh, nothing. Just trying something out."

Re:

[Quiet_Desperation]

"Is that a backed up data buffer or are you just happy to see me?"

Re:

[svtdragon]

I think they probably ought to exclude the "fap" acoustic signal. Otherwise it might spawn too many child processes.

sounds awesome

[Anonymous Coward]

so I bump my arm, crank up my mp3 player full blast and hang up on my boss all at once

do you think you can make an attachment to kick me in the balls too?

Re:

[revlayle]

you *assume* this will be abominable

Body...I/O

[cixelsyd]

Seriously? No time for the old in-out, love, I'm just here to read the meter.

Fixed that for you

[Locke2005]

"Skinput is a system from Carnegie Mellon's Chris Harrison that monitors acoustic signals on your penis to translate gestures and taps into input commands. Just by touching different points on your penis, balls, or taint you can tell your portable device to change volume, answer a call, or turn itself on. Even better, Harrison can couple Skinput with a pico projector so that you can see a graphic interface on your penis and use the acoustic signals to control it. The project is set to be presented at this y

I don't know about that...

[Angst Badger]

My first question is what happens when you brush against someone in a crowded place or bump your arm against an inanimate object?

Re:

[Locke2005]

My touchscreen phone frequently dials ex-girlfriends unintentionally when I leave it on the contacts page and put it in my pocket without turning the display off first. I suspect this system would also come with some way of disabling the input when not in use.

Re:

[Hognoxious]

My touchscreen phone frequently dials ex-girlfriends unintentionally when I leave it on the contacts page and put it in my pocket without turning the display off first.

And that concludes the case for the defence, m'lud.

Re:

[mcgrew]

You think that's bad, once I had oneof those candy bar cell phones in my pocket, and the damned thing dialed 911 when I was buying a bag of reefer. Talk about embarrasing...

I won't use anything but a flip phone since then.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

something in your pocket wants to get in touch with your ex-girlfriends...

Re:

[jimbolauski]

You too mine only happens at 2am outside a bar I think its some sort of software bug.

Re:

[StikyPad]

My phone never dials ex-girlfriends thanks to a simple process called "removing their numbers."

Re:

[frikazoyd]

The article notes that the accuracy of input origin is within 95%. So casual bumps shouldn't work, considering the input is in the inside of your arm. Hand input is trickier of course, but maybe you can set the sensitivity pretty low, so casual taps wouldn't work?

Awesome

[copponex]

We can all be as cool as this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiWMXTqS124 [youtube.com]

Re:Awesome but imitative

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Another case of life imitating Animation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBOQcQO0IFI&feature=related

They must have been watching this.

Baseball has been using this for years

[French Mailman]

Coaches and players have been issuing signals and commands by touching different parts of their body for as long as I can remember.

New technology using tapping?

[Skarecrow77]

Nobody can use any sort of touch interface but the iphone! Patent infringement lawsuit from Apple lawyers inbound in 3...2...1...

Invade your own privacy!

[voodoo cheesecake]

I wonder if there will be a truth detector app.

World Builder.

[Ostracus]

Even better, Harrison can couple Skinput with a pico projector so that you can see a graphic interface on your arm and use the acoustic signals to control it.

Something like this [vimeo.com]. :)

Prior Art.....

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

That was already done by David Byrne in the Once in a Lifetime Video [youtube.com] at 3:53.

the "input" part

[obarthelemy]

frightens me a bit.

Range of motion.

[spammeister]

So what happens if you were to re enact some of Michael Jackson's music videos? I could guess but what fun would that be!

Unintended Consequences...

[tillerman35]

Mommy- why is the antenna on that man's car going up and down?

Is this a Microsoft funded project?

[frikazoyd]

I noticed this story on Endgadget [engadget.com] a few days ago, and they mentioned Microsoft in the blurb. But I don't really see that connection in the video, or in this article. So did Microsoft fund this?

Teenagers texting

[BlendieOfIndie]

Just by touching different points on your arm, hand, or fingers you can tell your portable device to change volume, answer a call, or turn itself off.

Teenagers texting will look like a first base coach on crack.

Re:

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Teenagers texting will look like a first base coach on crack.

It will also bring a while new range of discussion topics regarding, "sexting," that new, scary, immoral thing that the news agencies have been decrying to be the downfall of my generations morality for the last 2 years now.

But honestly, if a new device or technology can be used for sex, teenagers will be the ones to figure out how. I would wager that skinput will be no different in this regard.

hmmmm

[HonTakuan]

So when I install this on my assembly line workers as a "communication device", I will also get the benefit of knowing exactly what they are doing (or not doing) at any time as well? Bonus!

its called teledildonics

[circletimessquare]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledildonics [wikipedia.org]

and if you think that's an unfair pornographic twist on this completely serious subject, then i would like to say

1. what the heck did you expect with it called "skinput"?
2. maybe having fleshy contact with our computers IS sexual

Automated pick pocket interface

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

I can see it now, you can have your account debited by a certain amount when a pickpocket goes to get your virtual wallet, and his virtual wallet can be updated with the theft in real time. Awsome!

And for an extra charge you can send an alert to law enforcement about the time and GPS coordinates of the crime, and link to sky cams in the vacinity to start the case documentation folder.

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