SKINPUT TECHNOLOGY : HUMAN BODY AS AN INPUT SURFACE

The widespread adoption of mobile electronic devices and the advent of wearable computing have encouraged the development of compact alternatives to the keyboard and mouse. This makes the emerging technology called Skinput a relevant one. Skinput is a technology that appropriates the human body for acoustic transmission, allowing the skin to be used as an input surface. We resolve the location of finger taps on the arm and hand by analyzing mechanical vibrations that propagate through the body. We collect these signals using a novel array of sensors worn as an armband. This approach provides an always available, naturally portable, and on-body finger input system. The skinput technology turns the human hand in to a virtual key board.

Skinput is a novel technique for physical communication or interaction, which is focused on mobile devices that utilize ‘skin’ as an info interface. This info interfacing method is an integration of some bio-acoustic sensors and machine learning languages, which helps people, to utilize their fingers, arms or any other part of their bodies as a track pad or touch pad to operate and control various devices. Skinput combines simple bio-acoustic sensors and some sophisticated machine learning to enable people to use their fingers or forearms as touch pads. Different types of finger taps on different parts of the hand and forearm produce unique acoustic signatures. A simple input device used here provides an acoustic signal, which the system decomposes into various unique features. Machine interpretation parses this  features into a unique identification  of the different taps. Skinput gives new meaning to the term “touch typing.”