14 DAY TRIAL // We can see that it is only a matter of time before everything we build somehow gains touch-based or touchscreen interaction.
What Disney Research came up with only enforces this idea. The Touche is a new touch input technology that senses capacitive signals across a range of frequencies instead of a single one.
The technique, dubbed Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing (SFCS), recognizes how one interacts with an object or surface and isn't limited to surface area differences.
Pinching a hooked-up object could, thus, be interpreted as a different command than grasping it.
A video shows the Touche interface recognizing a fingertip from a full palm even when working underwater.
Similarly, a proof of concept doorknob, of all things, can be locked or set to display “be right back” depending on how it is gripped and moved.
“Touché is a new sensing technology that proposes a novel Swept Frequency Capacitive Sensing technique that can not only detect a touch event, but simultaneously recognize complex configurations of the human hands and body during touch interaction,” the researchers wrote.
“This allows to significantly enhances touch interaction in a broad range of applications, from enhancing conventional touchscreens to designing interaction scenarios for unique use contexts and materials.”
See the video below for a lowdown of how Touche works and some demonstrations, down to submerging the test laptop underwater and pressing a finger or palm down upon it. Phones are also used in the demo and there is even a point where the PC notices a man pressing his fingers together.
“Importantly, instrumenting objects and material with touch sensitivity is easy and straightforward: a single wire is sufficient to make objects and environments touch and gesture sensitive,” Disney Research says.
All in all, Touche could be for touch technology what Google's Project Glass is for augmented reality / wearable displays (glasses).
Neither invention is much more than an idea at this point, but they have the potential to greatly change the world.
