Microsoft is showing off technology this week that uses the human body as a sounding board for Kinect-like applications.
Papers from Microsoft Research at the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems demonstrate the human body itself can be used for input, beyond the touching, typing, and waving that have come to include human-computer interaction.
Three technologies at the conference - "SoundWave", "Humantenna," and "LightGuide," show off the blending of physical and digital technologies.
SoundWave
ExtremeTech, our sister publication, has already done a good job describing what SoundWave is: bouncing low-frequency sounds off of the human body in an attempt to "read" gestures based on the Doppler effect.
The paper was authored by work of Sidhant Gupta and Shwetak N. Patel of Microsoft Research and the University of Washington along with Dan Morris and Desney Tan, also Microsoft researchers.
Humantenna
In a way, Humantenna is very similar to what Microsoft is attempting with SoundWave. Instead of using sounds, however, the computer attempt to sense the presence of electromagnetic fields, as given off by lights, televisions, and other electronics.
Like SoundWave, Humantenna works on the principle that the human body interacts with EMF fields. An external sensor on the computer can interpret these fields, figuring out that the human user is moving his right arm, for example. Based on the video that Microsoft submitted, Humantenna doesn't look nearly as precise as SoundWave, but does provide another medium of communication.
LightGuide
LightGuide doesn't use the body as an antenna so much as a canvas, or a screen. Instead of interpreting inputs from the body, it provides them as well. Imagine taking cues from a Kinect game like Dance Central where the cues were highlighted on your body: move your right leg up, move your hand left, and so on. It all sounds a bit awkward, but could have ramifications in physical therapy, for example, where the user needs to understand exactly the range of motion that he or she needs to have a therapeutic effect.
Microsoft is also showing off "MirageTable," where holographic information is projected directly on top of a curved screen. Microsoft said that it has shown this technology before, but the physical interaction with virtual objects is still worth checking out.
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