Disney Touché Touch Technology Can Make Nearly Anything A Touch Interface

 Touch Interfaces

Disney Research (yes, that Disney) is attempting to redefine the way touch gestures are used and looking to use them with a variety of everyday objects, inlcuding tablets, liquids, door handles, your sofa and even the human body. Their new Touché system uses a single electrode embedded into an object and attached to a sensor to provide rich touch and gesture interactivity.

T he team at Disney Research has announced breakthrough new touch interface technology that add extra gesture functionality to existing touchscreens and more exotic items like doorknobs and even the water's surface.

Touché works by sensing capacitive signals across a range of frequencies -- whereas typical systems only pick up signal at a single frequency. This Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing (SFCS) can recognize exactly how we interact with an object or surface, not limited to surface area differences.

The Disney Research study titled "Touché: Enhancing Touch Interaction on Humans, Screens, Liquids, and Everyday Objects" is available online. The authors areIvan Poupyrev (Disney Research Pittsburgh), in collaboration with Munehiko Sato (University of Tokyo) and Chris Harrison (HCII, Carnegie Mellon University.

According to Disney Research, this could include embedding different commands for when a user pinches or grasps a hooked-up object. One proof of concept door knob allows it to be locked or display a "be right back" sign depending on exactly how it's handled.

SOURCE  Engadget

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