Researchers Make the Imaginary Phone a Reality

When we were kids and played with our friends, we all have at some point or the other made up an imaginary phone by using our palm. It was the same size as a regular phone (both wired and mobile) and negated the purchase of one for your daily dose of cops and robbers.

Cool, isnt it?

It looks like the same idea has made a comeback, but this time it is used to turn your hand into a ‘touchscreen’. Using a trackable depth camera, researchers at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany were able to send signals to the phone in order to operate the device.

According to the researchers, “Imaginary Phone allows users to control their mobile devices without taking it out of their pocket. Instead, users mimic the interaction on the palm of their hand. The interaction is tracked by a wearable depth camera which sends input events to the actual physical device. By mimicking the layout of the physical device, here an iPhone, users can operate the device based on spatial memory built up while using the physical device. We think this can be useful for the large number of "micro interactions" that users perform every day, such as sending a call to the voice box or setting an alarm.Imaginary Interfaces provide the next level of convenience to users. In the past, mobile devices required users to retrieve a stylus and the device and current touch devices require retrieving only the device. Imaginary interfaces do not require retrieving anything, so the user can begin the interaction right away”.

To have a better understanding of the technology, the researchers have recorded a video with the camera in action.

Hope this technology is adopted by phone manufacturers as soon as possible, cause this just looks cool to use.

Via: PCWorld