Turning gadgets into their own computer mice
Carnegie Mellon University researchers say that the same optical sensors found in computer mice can be used to give mouse-like capabilities to gadgets such as mobile phones and MP3 players — but there’s a twist.
The «Minput» project, funded in part by the National Science Foundation (NSF) enables such devices to serve as their own mice by rubbing them against a flat surface, clothing or even your hand, but also enables the devices to provide input by flicking or twisting them.
«Minput turns out to be a fairly intuitive way to navigate through menus or photo galleries on a device’s display without fumbling with tiny buttons or obscuring a small touchscreen with your fingers,” said Chris Harrison, a third-year Ph.D. student who developed Minput with faculty adviser Scott Hudson, a professor at CMU’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute. «Because we use a pair of sensors, it can respond to a wide range of gestural commands, much like an iPhone or other multi-touch device.»
Harrison recently presented a paper on Minput at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.
