This video shows how the new Skinput technology works. It is demonstrated and described by its creator Chris Harrison

Brief Description of My Essay on Skinput

The portable electronic devices realm is approaching a simple yet inevitable dilemma as the demand to make smaller devices increases. With every downsizing of a portable device comes the downsizing of its buttons. The problem with this is that human fingers will always be about the same size. This becomes particularly evident as these portable devices allow users to be able to do more complicated commands. The smaller buttons cause the user to often select the wrong thing, misspell text messages or dial the wrong number. However, Carnegie Mellon doctoral student, Chris Harrison has created a cure to the teeny tiny button dilemma even going as far as making devices more convenient than ever before. Harrison said, “Our computers are getting faster, have more hard drive and more options for us to use. That changes all the time. The things that haven’t changed are our finger size and the available surface area. We can’t engineer our way out of that” (Hamill, 2010). His solution, Skinput, allows the user to interface with their devices by using their own skin.

Sean D. Hamill. (12 April). The next computer frontier: Your skin: Carnegie Mellon doctoral student has big plans for the way we input information. McClatchy - Tribune Business News. Proquest Research database, http://proquest.umi.com.mutex.gmu.edu/login , Retrieved March 12, 2012, from ABI/INFORM Dateline. (Document ID: 2006625761).

Skinput: Advangages and Disadvantages

Skinput is a new technology that will turn out skin into a touchscreen interface menu for our portable devices such as our cell phone or MP3 player.

Advantages:

• easy to access when your phone is not available
• allows users to interact more personally with their device
• larger buttons to reduce the risk of pressing the wrong buttons
• through the use of a sense called proprioception after user learns where the locations are on the skin they will no longer have to look down to use Skinput reducing people looking down at their phone while driving
• It can be used for a more interactive gaming experience

Disadvantages

• Currently there are only five buttons. A phone uses at least 10 buttons to dial a phone number of send a text message
• The easy accessibility will cause people to be more socially distracted
• If the user has more than a 30% Body Mass Index Skinput is reduced to 80% accuracy
• The arm band is currently bulky
• the visibility of the projection of the buttons on the skin can be reduced if the user has a tattoo located on their arm