COM 125 - Entry #4: New Microsoft Technology

Sept. 27, 2002--University of Delaware researchers, Elias and Wayne Westerman, UD visiting assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering, have developed a technology that goes well beyond the mouse and mechanical keyboard. The FingerWorks name fits because the technology uses a touch pad and a range of finger motions to communicate commands and keys to the computer. To open a file, you rotate your hand as if opening a jar; to zoom or de-zoom, you expand or contract your hand.

Elias said the communication power of their system is “thousands of times greater” than that of a mouse, which uses just a single moving point as the main input. Using this new technology, two human hands provide 10 points of contact, with a wide range of motion for each, thus providing thousands of different patterns, each of which can mean something different to the computer. This is not just a little step in improving the mouse, this is the first step in a new way of communicating with the computer through gestures and the movements of your hands. This is, after all, one of the ways humans interact. By mimicking these simple hand gestures, technology and the computer will become an integral part of our lives if it already isn’t.I think that this invention/evolution changes the way people make use of what was once the keyboard and will be, in the near future –a touch pad which fits like a glove and works by simulating common-sensical hand gestures to operate the computer. The computer also is transformed from what was merely a CPU, a monitor and a keyboard, is now a clear screen whereby images are projected onto it, seemingly like magic, with pictures plucked out from nowhere. Maybe one day, we would wake up to a “world” like that of Minority Report, whereby a very complex gestural language between man and machine exists.

The system is a multi-touch, zero force technology, meaning the gestures and movements use all the fingers in a light and subtle manner. Because of that, the system has a second major advantage over the mouse and mechanical keyboard because it can greatly reduce stress injuries such as tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome attributed to traditional computer work.

The touch pad acts like a video camera, recording the objects touching its surface. An embedded microprocessor then applies an algorithmic process to convert those touches into commands understood by the computer. “To observers watching somebody use multi-touch, it looks a little like magic,” Elias said, illustrating his point on a computer in Evans Hall. “People see lots of things happening on the computer screen but very little hand motion is observed.”

He said the system has been designed so the gestures used make sense for the operation being performed. For instance, you cut text with a pinch and paste it with a flick. Eventually, he said, the computer password could be a gesture known only to the user. To end off, I believe this is one invention and evolution of technology that can really make a huge impact in the world of business and in our everyday lives. For the better or worse, it’s still too soon to tell. Technology – boon or bane of our lives? You decide.

Reference: http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/01-02/fingerworks092702.html