Abracadabra: Wireless, High-Precision, and Unpowered Finger Input for Very Small Mobile Devices - summary

This article is mainly about how we will interface with touch screens as they become smaller. This particular unit shown offers a screen and behind the screen is a magnetic sensor that is used to essentially track the magnet attached to a users finger. There are several ways to control the screen via the magnet. The first control is a click which is done by starting with the magnet in front of the screen and slowly dropping below the screen's horizon. As the magnet drops below the screens horizon the sensors will pick up a polar shift from north to south of the magnet thus initiating a click. the second type of control is the scrolling capability. the sensor is able to detect when the magnet moves across the screen activating the scrolling mechanism programmed into the screen.


This would be useful for current touch screens to remedy the "fat finger" problem, however a screen this small as depicted would be hard to read and would not be popular. Also vision would be impaired since you need to pass your finger in front of a small screen instead of a pin point of a stylus.


Article written by: Chris Harrison, Scott E. Hudson Human-Computer Interaction Institute Carnegie Mellon University, 5000 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213 {chris.harrison, scott.hudson}@cs.cmu.edu