SideSight!

Title: SideSight: Multi-“touch” Interaction Around Small Devices

Author(s): Alex Butler, Shahram Izadi, Steve Hodges

Summary: The authors of this article were aiming to improve upon the existing problem of the constant shrinking of the screens of handheld devices, and the desire for improvement of existing touch technology used on those handheld devices. They came up with the idea of creating a virtual touch surface by using Infrared sensors on the sides of the device, using the IR light reflected off of a person's finger to create a "touch" input. Not only was the surface much larger than the device, but it was also capable of handling multiple "touch inputs" at once, allowing for specialized gestures.

While the testing of the device went well, even without special regard to outside light noise, the improvements made to the device were not particularly robust against that outside noise, and in particular were only very useful when the device was placed on a flat surface.

Shaun's Thoughts: I thought the idea presented by the authors was a very novel idea to a growing problem in the world of technology. The system appears to be easy to implement and capable of being very robust and useful. However, the fact that it is not very useful outside of a flat surface environment makes the further research and development of this idea absolutely essential before deeming it a great find. Most people don't interact with their handheld devices, phones especially, while it is lying on a table. All in all though, still an intriguing idea.