Jeff Han Multi-Touch Sensor and Its Applications - Case Study Example

Technology – Jeff Han Multi-Touch Sensor and its Applications Introduction: Since the dawn of the modern computer age researchers have strived vigorously to personalize man to machine. One of the earliest breakthroughs came about as an accident in 1979 with the creation of the mouse. Apple, witch had created the mouse to simply point at objects on a computer screen saw new use for the invention as a window to a more intimate experience with the computer. Shortly after the future of computing seemed fictional, with technological patents proclaiming about touch screen interfaces many had a hard time swallowing what the future might entail. We have came a long way since 1979 and have witnessed many new advancements made in this field but none compare to the creation of Jeff Han’s Multi-touch sensor. Developed in NYUs Department of Computer Science, the multi-touch sensor is a revolutionary device that will forever change the way humans interact with machines. Development of Touch Sensors: The multi-touch sensor in its simplest form is an advance version of the touch screen interface. A touch screen is a unique input device that eliminates the conventional use of the computer’s mouse and keyboard and replaces it with the use of a human hand and a touch sensitive screen. The concept of using human touch as the means to communicate becoming popular, owes its origins to the works of Sherrick (1985) and Rollmam (1999), changing the paradigm of commands and input devices in a computer controlled environment. (1). Unlike its predecessor the multi-touch system has the capabilities to recognize more then just one touch point. A touch point is the contact made on a particular touch screen; this is possible by sensors that pick up the pressure made form the human touch, the heat from a human hand, and or cameras that capture the actual touch made. Software programs can be written to make use of this technology to vastly enhance the interaction between the human and the computer. (2). The significance of the multi-touch interface can not be adequately understood unless one knows the significance of a regular touch screen. Touch screens in general already eliminate the use of the bulky keyboard and mouse. This presents a friendly outlook on the computer experience which enables the creation of a flux in user. It eliminates the analogy of the word desktop and actually transforms the computer in to an actual desk. This effect is crated by the touch screen interface that allows users to touch what they see. No longer are icons and images viewed as being an abstract object on a screen, but through the means of the touch screen they become concrete tangible objects that are at disposal of out finger tips. Now that we have understood what the original touch screen has given us we can now elaborate the significance of a multi-touch screen. As we stated before the multi-touch recognizes more then one touch point this breakthrough design gives us endless possibilities that we can incorporate into programs. One of the many things that can by achieved by the multi-touch point capabilities is the use of multiple of buttons or options. Programs can be set up to recognize each point as a different option or task button, which has caused simple pointing, button pushing, and dragging to dominate the interaction between a user and the computer. (2). Multiple user facilities in the form of interactive walls or interactive table tops, which enable multiple users to interact on the same touch-sensitive platform is no longer in the realms of imagination, but a reality. (3). The Jeff Han Multi-Touch Sensor: The technology involved in the Jeff Han multi-touch sensor is frustrated total internal reflection, which has already seen application in biometrics, through its use for acquiring fingerprint imagery. This technique enables the multi-touch sensor to acquire actual touch information that has high spatial and temporal resolutions making it possible to create very large installations. (4). Laws of physics that govern the movement of light through different mediums, tell us that the refraction of light as it travels through a medium of higher refractive index to a medium of lower refractive index is influenced by the angle at which it encounters the border between the two mediums. When this angle goes beyond a prescribed critical angle, light will not be refracted, but instead will be reflected. This is the principle of total internal reflection. However, should a another material be in contact with the material in which total internal reflection is taking place, then instead of reflecting, light escapes in what is known as frustration of the internal reflection, leading to the development of frustrated total internal reflection, which has been employed to create the Jeff Han multi-touch sensor, and has been named after the developer. (3). The touch display in the Jeff Han multi-touch sensor is made up of clear acrylic, having light emitting diodes at the edges, illuminating the acrylic with infrared light. The light that is scattered on touch is captured by a camera. (5). For identifying the contact points involved, basic image processing techniques are employed on the output from the camera. Motion of contact points are interpreted as discrete touches or touches through the use of computer-vision techniques. The final processing in real time is handled by a computer. (3). In the demonstration of the Jeff Han multi-touch sensor, Han standing over a large screen placed on a drafting table projected a series of dramatic images behind him, by just moving his fingers over the screen. These images included moving around and expanding icons and photographs, constructing a two-dimensional keyboard on the screen and using it as anyone would a three-dimensional keyboard, and the lava-lamp effect that caused globules to pulsate and move upwards. (6). The Han multi-touch sensor is not just a concept in the development stages, but a reality, with Perceptive Pixel the company set up by Han to exploit his development sending a finished application to a military user. (5). Applications for the Jeff Han multi-touch sensor are believed to be many including educational, medical and creative applications. In the opinion of Jeff Han one of the key advantages that the Jeff Han multi-touch sensor offers is that "multi-touch sensing was designed to allow non-techies to do masterful things while allowing power users to be even more virtuosic." (7). Applications for the Jeff Han Multi-Touch Sensor: Technical advances are most useful, when they enhance one or more areas of social activity enhancing the experience in that activity. More so when they provide an inexpensive way for this enhanced experience. (10). Keeping this aspect in view applications for the Jeff Hans multi-touch are evaluated from two significant areas of human activity, namely entertainment and education. Application in Entertainment: Entertainment is part of our everyday life that helps remove the stresses and strains that are experienced in our daily routines. Creating music, playing music or just listening to music helps soothe our strained nerves or an exercise for passing time. Many a time this experience occurs, when we are alone and we use audio and visual technology to enhance this experience. Imagine being able to create an image of our choice and playing it to create music or watch how the instrument is manipulated to create different musical sounds that are part of the music experience. Sounds good! Now expand this to being able to listen to music and by the touch of a finger produce the image of the instrument of your choice or movement of your hand on a touch screen in the table in front of you, and watch how the instrument is manipulated as you listen to the music. Throw up on the screen as many instruments involved and watch how they are played as you listen to them. Better still! Take this experience further by involving yourself in it by choosing an instrument and playing it yourself, as part of the music group or orchestra and become a part of it and add color to it by having globules pulsate in tempo with the music, as you beat it out with a finger. The best! This need not be imagination, but become a reality with the Jeff Han multi-touch sensor at costs that would not burn a huge hole in your pocket. (10). To create the ability to do this will require a Jeff Hans multi-touch sensor, the screen for projection, a computer of sufficient capabilities, infrared camera, projector, required imagery and image processing software and the application software. The limitation of the experience will be based on the limitations of the image processing software and the programs written into the application software (11). This could be transferred to a group experience. Discotheques are the in place for dancing to a variety of music, played by a disc jockey, to the accompaniment of a play of lights. This could very well change to the disc jockey providing the same experience, but in addition throwing up images the group playing the music and through the movements of his hands manipulating the images of the group, or an individual in the group, or the instruments played by an individual in the group, with globules pulsating to the tempo of the music as the background of the screen. The novelty of the Jeff Hans multi-touch sensor in music as an entertainment source lies in its capacity to enhance the entertainment value of music to an individual or a group of people by visuals that are manipulated by the individual to whims and fancies of the individual, or by the coordinating individual in group entertainment, depending on the moods and requirements of the group, merely by the touch of fingers or gestures of the hand. Application in Education: Curriculum development to provide better outcomes for students through education is becoming more focused on students and their learning styles. This has caused Hopper and Hurry, 2000, p.28, to stress that “the more we can match youngsters to congenial approaches of teaching, learning and assessing, the more likely it is that those youngsters will achieve educational success”. Evaluating learning styles Graf, Lin & Kinshuk, 2008, inform us that some students tend to remember more, when the information is presented as pictures, diagrams, and flow charts and the learning process consists of such interaction. This has led to the use the greater use of information technology and its ability to make the learning process have visual experiences through pictures, diagrams, flow charts of the study material in classrooms. (10). Given such an evolving scenario in the field of education, applications for Jeff Han multi-touch sensor with its inherent strength of projecting images and manipulating them will necessarily emerge to enhance the learning experience of students. Present day classrooms use writing and erasing on the blackboard, or a stylus on interactive whiteboards to create text and images for students to learn their study material. Educational software programs written for the Jeff Han multi-touch sensor provides the means for teachers as well as students to use their fingers and hands to create and change information in a more meaningful way to acquire knowledge of their study material. (6). Pictures, diagrams, flow charts and graphs those are required in the understanding of the study material thrown up on the screen and manipulated by the teacher or the students themselves acting as the cursor themselves by touching or running their hands on the pertinent parts of the Jeff Han multi-touch sensor. The significant experience will be the drawing out of the required images and then manipulating them to provide a better understanding of the material to be learnt and increasing the levels of success achieved. Another significant aspect of the use of these sensors in the classrooms as educational aids is that it allows more than one individual to operate the touch screen. The multi-touch sensor can accommodate twenty or more fingers, which makes it suitable tool for a collaborative learning experience, wherein either the teacher along with a group of students go through the learning experiences using visual image and manipulating them, or this can be done by a group of students themselves. Such learning experiences are not limited by any levels or disciplines of education and would be limited only through the educational soft wares and images created for different levels of study. For example school students learning biology can see and manipulate images of the human body to understand the way in which the human body in a more generalized manner in keeping with their requirements, while medical students will experience and manipulate more complex images of the organs of the human body to provide greater depth of knowledge that their level of education demands. Thus the novelty of the application of the Jeff Han multi-touch sensor lies in the collaborative learning experience that it provides in classrooms. Works Cited 1. Hayward, Vincent., Astley, R. Oliver., Cruz-Hernandez, Manuel., Grant Danny & Robles-De-La-Torre, Gabriel. “Haptic interfaces and devices”. Sensor Review 24.1 (2004): 16-29. 2. Buxton, Bill. “Multi-Touch Systems that I Have Known and Loved”. 2007. 25 June 2008. . 3. Boisclair, Cody. “Low-Cost Multi-Touch Sensing through Frustrated Total Internal Reflection”. 2007. 25 June 2008. . 4. “Multi-Touch Sensing through Frustrated Total Internal Reflection”. 25 June 2008. . 5. Greene, Kate. “Touch Screens for Many Fingers”. Technology Review. 2007. MIT. 25 June 2008. . 6. Starkman, Neal. “ENTERING A NEW DIMENSION”. THE Journal 34.5 (2007): 24-29. 7. King, John. “Jeff Han”. TIME 171.19 (2008): 85. 8. Hopper, B. & Hurry, P. “Learning the MI Way. The Effects on Students Learning of Using the Theory of Multiple Intelligences”. Pastoral Care in Education 18.4 (2000): 26-32. 9. Graf, S., Lin, T. & KInshuk. “The relationship between learning styles and cognitive traits - Getting additional information for improving student modeling”. Computers in Human Behavior 24.2 (2008): 122-137 10. Brand, M. Thomas. “FTIR Multitouch and Display Device- A Guide to build your own - Experiments with Processing, OSC”. 2007. 25 June 2008. . 11. Mangialardi, Michael., Widing, Dan. & Johnson, Erik. “SEED Proposal for Multi-Touch Screen using Frustrated Total Internal Reflection”. 25 June 2008. . Read More