Skinput (Bio-Acoustic Sensing)

Skinput was developed by Chris Harrison at Carnegie Mellon University and Dan Morris and Desney Tan at Microsoft's Computational User Experiences Group in Redmond, Washington. As the researchers explain, the motivation for Skinput comes from the increasingly small interactive spaces on today's pocket-sized mobile devices. Skinput Technology use our skin as a medium for controlling a computer or other gadgets. By using sensors placed on the arm, every touch on every part will be able to control many things. Sensor that is able to distinguish a touch hard on every point so that differences can be used to distinguish the desired control. Skinput – a method that allows the body to be appropriated for finger input using a novel, non-invasive, wearable bio-acoustic sensor.
Skinput uses a series of sensors to track where a user taps on his arm. Previous attempts at using projected interfaces used motion-tracking to determine where a person taps. Skinput uses a different and novel technique: It "listens" to the vibrations in our body.Tapping on different parts of your arm creates different kinds of vibrations depending on the amount and shape of bones, tendons and muscle in that specific area. Skinput sensors can track those vibrations using an armband and discern where the user tapped.