Tablet interacts with magnets, how does that work?

Making computers interact with physical objects is a favorite of the HCI gurus out there, but these builds usually take the form of image recognition of barcodes or colors. Of course there are new near field communication builds coming down the pipe, but [Andrea Bianchi] has figured out an easier way to provide a physical bridge between computer and user. … Read the rest

Acoustic barcodes deliver data with a fingernail and microphone

Either through QR codes, RFID, or near field communication, there seems to be some desire to share tiny pieces of data in a more physical and accessible form. [Chris Harrison], [Robert Xiao], and [Scott E. Hudson] of the HCI Institute at Carnegie Mellon have come up with a fairly interesting solution of making data more physical. They call it Acoustic Read the rest

Tracking eye movement by measuring electrons in the eye

[Luis Cruz] is a Honduran High School student, and he built an amazing electrooculography system, and the writeup (PDF warning) of the project is one of the best we’ve seen.

[Luis] goes through the theory of the electrooculogram – the human eye is polarized from front to back because of a negative charge in the nerve endings in the … Read the rest

Pen based input improvements

Lately we’ve been focusing on multitouch technologies, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t interesting research going on in other areas of human-computer interaction. [Johnny Lee] posted a roundup of some the work that [Gonzalo Ramos] and others have done with pen based input. The video embedded above shows how pressure can be used to increase control precision. Have a look … Read the rest