SIGGRAPH 2007 is just around the corner, and all you multi-touch enthusiasts get ready for a great showdown(held 5-9 August 2007) at San Diego Convention Center, San Diego, California, USA. I think the Microsoft Surface is going to be the center of the attraction in comparision to others similar technologies.
JazzMutant is emphasizing its new Multi-Touch tech as “Mutli-Touch Interaction Techniques for Visual Content Creation”
Enhanced Life
Because of their versatility, multi-touch displays are appropriate for both productive and entertaining computing. By providing ergonomic design with optimized workflow, they improve user experience and make interaction with computers much more intuitive, playful, and efficient.
Goals
JazzMutant delivers advanced control solutions for musicians and sound engineers, but video and graphic artists have requested similar systems for their applications. This system demonstrates early attempts to fulfill those requests.Innovations
The JazzMutant resistive technologysystem differs from optical systems in its form factor. Because it is both scalable and portable, it can be integrated in a wide variety of devices. It is exceptionally reliable, even in harsh environments. And it can be used in conjunction with other pointing devices such as stylus. This enables richer interaction techniques that can not be achieved with touch input alone.
Vision
In the past two years, many good multi-touch interaction techniques have been introduced, but most of them are merely focused on zoomable user interfaces. This approach is only the tip of the iceberg. The key to success for future multi-touch systems is multi-modality: appropriate integration of several input devices.
Well Lets hope JazzMutant can show us something different and unique. 🙂
Fibratus Tactile Sensor
 |
A new interface device that uses the property of reflection to evaluate the sense of gentle touch, which is not possible with current tactile sensors.
Enhanced Life
When users stroke the Fibratus Tactile Sensor, their fingers create dynamic flows that can be used as inputs to computer systems. When softer fibers are utilized, the sensor is even capable of sensing air motion. This enhanced sensitivity could enable new types of interfaces. For example, in near-future robots, the sensor could evaluate softer contact sensations than existing tactile sensors, which could encourage adoption of robots in daily life.
Goals
To develop a new tactile sensing system that supports:
- Multi sensing, contact-less interactive devices
- Sensing by means of active patterns
- Thin device and rapid sensing
Innovations
This new optical tactile sensor can detect surface deformation with high precision by applying the principle of an optical lever. Transparent silicone rubber is used as the flexible mirror surface. Because of the distribution of the refractive index between air and the silicone rubber, the boundary surface has a reflection characteristic similar to that of a mirror. The flexible mirror surface is implanted with fibratus salience, the hardness of which is a little greater than that of silicone rubber. From this salience, the surface of the fibratus is considered to be the contact surface, and the reflection characteristics remain unchanged.
Vision
Future work involves additional applications of the Fibratus Tactile Sensor and further exploitation of its properties.
