Harrison’s concept uses the body to sense touch inputs. When a particular part of the body is tapped, a sensor on the upper arm can detect where exactly the tap originated from, either the fingertips or the forearm. This is done by sensing the vibrations that are generated by each tap.

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Once this is paired with a projector, you’ve got a whole new input device: your own body.

Skinput is set to be presented at a conference in April.

[via Core77]

The curvaceous lamp is loaded up with bright RGB LEDs that can change to any of 16 million unique colors and brightness levels through the use of a unique touch-panel interface. It actually works sort of like the color palette control you might find in photo-editing and painting software. Check out how it works in the video below:

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In addition to fixed-colors, you can set the Jellyfish to a color flow mode with a variable fade speed between the colors of your choice. And you can switch off the front side illumination, leaving only the Jellyfish’s clear “tentacle” structure which provides a cool backlighting.

When powered off, the Jellyfish maintains a stealthy look, with a sleek black top and white bottom.

While I haven’t found any U.S. retailers for the Yantouch yet, the have numerous Taiwanese and Japanese retailers as well as an French retailer listed up on their website. Pricing in Japan is set at ¥14,800 (appx. $160 USD).

[Yantouch Jellyfish via Impress Watch (translated)]

The Elan Smart Remote (model ESR-8020) features a pair of capacitive touch pads, which can be used to interact with any standard PC software. The remote has five modes: mouse, keyboard, joystick, presentation and handwriting recognition. While each pad appears to only sense a single finger press, the pair together can be used to produce Windows 7 multitouch gestures. Flip the remote over, and it’s a full-function AV remote for controlling Windows Media Center apps. Check out the video below to see the Elan Smart Remote in action.

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Elan plans on showing off the remote at the upcoming CES 2010 show in Las Vegas. No word on pricing or a release date yet.

Blump’it is designed to provide an easy, fingertip-optimized interface for accessing Internet applications on wireless or 3G-connected touchscreen device. From what I’ve seen so far, it really just looks like a glorified touch menu for your web browser, but maybe I’m missing something.

To make it a bit more compelling, Blump’it is distributing an unbranded “lab” tablet with a 10.2″ LCD touchscreen (1024×600 resolution), running on an Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz CPU and a Linux OS/Blump’it interface combo. The tablet measures in at a rather hefty 24.7mm (.972″) thick, and weighs 950 grams (just about 2 pounds) – with the rechargeable battery pack in place. The tablet includes both 802.11a/b/g Wi-Fi and CDMA 3G connectivity – which means that if you’re on a GSM network – you’re out of luck for now.

To see the Blump’it interface and hardware in action, check out this video from the guys at netbooknews… (to cut to the chase, skip ahead to 1:55 for the hardware, and 4:50 for the interface).

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Did you notice the Blump’it virtual keyboard is an AZERTY, not a QWERTY? That’s because the tablet comes from France. I’m assuming you’ll have a choice of keyboards once it’s released worldwide – if not, that sure would be silly. Interested? Blump’it is taking pre-orders for the tablet now at their website for €499 or $699 (USD). If you’re interested in checking out the software interface on your own computer, they plan on releasing a Firefox plug-in sometime in January and you can register for the Alpha here. Rumor has it, they’re also working on a Chrome version.

Developed by Germany’s Elektrosil and Citron, dreaMTouch can actually detect up to 32 simultaneous touch points on displays as large as 82″ diagonal. The dreaMTouch can even handle all of those tracking points without any worry about such things as your fingers crossing paths – which can be a problem with technologies like the NextWindow touchscreen tech that HP uses in their Touchsmart desktops.

The system is designed to layer on top of existing display technologies, adding a 4mm thick piece of laminated safety glass in front of the screen. Data is then sent to any computer using a standard USB interface.

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The dreaMTouch can even detect the size and location of objects placed in the touch area – which means it could be used to build tangible interaction apps like the ones you find on Microsoft’s Surface. Sweet! Plus it interfaces directly with TUIO, a popular open source standard for interacting with multitouch applications.

No word on how and when you’ll be able to get your hands on one of these, so for now, we’ll just have to sit back and wait and live with our primitive old 2 finger multitouch computers. Waaah.

[via Multitouch.nl]

The unusual computer controller features over 30 touch points which can be used to interact with your games and other software like you’ve never done before. Each glove can be custom calibrated to your own unique touch and hand size, and each touch point can be mapped to your computer keys using the included configuration software. Since the glove emulates keys on your keyboard, you can play just about any game with it – although it’s probably best for RTS and MMORPG games. But I’d still like to try playing MAME with one.

The military-grade glove attaches to your computer with a breakaway magnetic connector pod that’s designed to breakaway in case you get too raucous when thrashing around.  And since it’s a standard HID-compliant USB device you can use it with Windows, Mac OS and Linux computers without a problem. (though the configuration software is only coming for Windows and Macs).

Check out the videos below to see the Peregrine in action:

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Peregrine expects to start shipping the glove in early 2010 for $129 (USD) – $20 off of the regular price, and you can pre-order yours here.

This compact wireless handheld keyboard feature a tiny QWERTY keypad like you’d find on your mobile phone, and lets you transmit keystrokes to your computer from up to 30 feet away. There’s also a little wireless trackpad so you can control the cursor from across the room. The keypad also has a bright backlight for use in darkened rooms.

Just plug in the included RF receiver USB dongle, charge up the controller, and you’ll be e-mailing from across the room in no time. Check out the video clip below to see the keyboard in action.

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At first glance, I struggled to understand why you’d want a keyboard this small, but then I realized it might be good for doing presentations, as well as for controlling an HTPC setup if you want to surf the web on your big screen television. Or maybe for when your cat wants to use the computer. The wireless keyboard/touchpad is available over at USB Geek for $62 (USD).

Created by Amidio – the same folks who brought us the amazing noise.io iphone synth. According to the Amidio guys, Touch DJ is a serious live performance tool, and not just an audio toy like many other iPhone apps.

The app not only can mix two MP3 tracks, it lets you apply audio effects, pitch-bending, equalization and looping without ever leaving the intuitive visual interface. Each track is automatically color coded to correspond to its frequencies to make it even easier to match beats. Check out the video clips below to see (and hear) a sneak preview of Touch DJ in action.

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Once released, Touch DJ will ship with 25 dance tracks from DanceMusicHub that you can immediately create music with, and I assume that additional tracks will be available for download in the future. Amidio also plans on releasing a Touch DJ sync application that lets you send your own MP3s to your iPhone or iPod Touch.

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Keep in mind that the audio processing is very processor intensive so Amidio recommends using Touch DJ only on the iPhone 3GS or newer iPod Touch models with faster CPUs. There’s no word yet on when Touch DJ will hit the app store. All Amidio says on their site is “ESTIMATED AVAILABILITY DATE: ??? (ASK APPLE!)”. Hopefully, that means soon. For now, follow them over on Twitter to be notified when Touch DJ is released.

These pint-sized electronic steel drums can be played with a simple touch of your finger, with each pad representing a distinct note from the major scale. The mini drums can even record and play back your musical compositions – as long as your composition isn’t any longer than 25 notes. With the full Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So-La-Ti-Do in its arsenal, you can improvise a reggae (or is that ragga) version of your favorite jams with ease. Heck, check out some of the tunes the Vat19 guys cranked out in this here vid clip:

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Hmm, I can’t decide if I like that steel drum Mario Bros. or reggae Biz Markie better. You be the judge.

Ready to be jammin’, mon? Just head on over to Vat19 and bang out a pair for just $18.95(USD).

The demo video shows how the new interface allows for eyes-free browsing of contacts. The most important part of the setup is the square of 8 letters/symbols that appears as soon as you touch the screen. The square is centered on your finger, so any of the 8 surrounding alphabets is just a swipe away. Swiping to a letter causes the phone to vibrate, indicating that you have reached a letter.

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As soon as you swipe to a letter, a new set of 7 letters/symbols fills the rest of the square. According to Google, this ensures that all letters/symbols are at most only 3 swipes away. You then raise your finger off the screen upon reaching the desired letter/symbol to select it. A voice prompt announces the letter/symbol you have selected, after which the phone searches your contacts and goes to the first name that starts with the selected letter/symbol.

It doesn’t sound extremely complicated, but if ever it’s implemented into future phones, it will surely take users quite a while to learn and adjust to the interface. Read the full article for Google’s other planned eyes-free features, such as gesture-based commands. I’m curious to know how much impact such an interface would have on the battery life of phones.

[via Technology Review]

The Building Brick iPod Speakers, aka iPod Brick, aka iBlock, but not aka Lego iPod speakers,  works with 3rd-5th gen iPods, 1st-3rd gen iPod Nanos and on the iPod touch. I swear I had to retype those iStuff so many times. cOnfusing aS hEll. I mean, they’re not made by aPple.

The center bottom pegs act as nifty volume up and volume down buttons. The speakers are also said to have an “Active Bass System”. Which just might be a fancy way of saying that it has bass. Tinny, but it’s there. It sells for $20 at Think Geek, and no it doesn’t fit together with ordinary Lego blocks.  Also, I don’t know if Think Geek only has the blue ones, because for UK residents there are no blue blocks but there are red, white, and black blocks over at iWant One of Those, and they’re $2 cheaper too.

[via I Want One of Those and Think Geek]

The company refers to this product as “the natural evolution of a long-necked dinosaur.” I think this is a bad marketing slogan, because by now everyone knows about the ginormous asteroids and we’ve all seen Jurassic Park and it’s just not working for me on any level. But, maybe that’s also partly because the Soaripod looks almost exactly like the evolution of this Gorillapod I got like 3 years ago to hold up my digital camera.

You can buy one here for $29.99. Now for the lame part: they don’t have one that fits your shiny new iPhone 3G yet, only your ancient, crusty, old 1st generation iPhone or iPod Touch (maybe that’s where they got the dinosaur slogan from – Ed.). They fit on other cellphones, video players, and smartphones as well, but exactly which ones aren’t specified.

[via GeekSugar]

iPong is a variant of Atari’s classic paddle ball game, with a multi-device, multi-player twist. Using some clever trickery, players can actually bounce their ball off of their iPhone’s screen onto the display of another phone. While the game can’t actually detect the proximity of the devices at this point, it does appear to store the exit position of the ball on one screen and transmit that as the entrance point on the adjacent screen.

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Given the fact that it only took the guy who developed iPong a couple of hours to put this game demo together, I can’t wait to see what sort of games emerge when there’s actually time to design and develop. Very cool stuff indeed.

[via Waxy via TUAW]

MixMeister Scratch lets you choose from a bunch of digitized scratch sound effects, then lets you perform some turntable wizardry on any tune you’ve got loaded into your iPhone or iPod Touch.

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Just pick your track, load MixMeister Scratch, and you can start scratching ’til the cows come home. The touch interface also lets you adjust the volume of your tunes as you use your fingertip to “spin” the virtual turntable. I’d love to see this running on a pair of iPhones side by side.

The application isn’t quite ready for download yet (I’m assuming it’ll run on the Apple iPhone SDK, but I’m not certain). But you can sign up to be notified of its availability here.

The latest code hack floating around the Interwebs takes the slick iTunes CoverFlow interface and lets you use it in other applications.

Developer Kevin Brosius has managed to create an application which provides an instance of the CoverFlow interface for use in other applications. Then, in keeping with the spirit of the iPhone dev community, just a few hours later, developer Layton Duncan leveraged the code to troll through the directories on your iPhone and generate an application menu using CoverFlow.

Want to give the code a shot on your jailbroken device? You can grab Kevin’s UICoverFlowLayer code here, or Layton’s application menu binary here.

[via iPhone Atlas]

The system is capable of detecting movements in 3-dimensions without ever having to put your fingers on the screen.

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Their patented touchless interface doesn’t require that you wear any special sensors on your hand either. You just point at the screen (from as far as 5 feet away), and you can manipulate objects in 3D.

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Elliptic says the technology is compact enough that it could eventually be embedded into mobile devices. Representatives of the company will be on hand at the upcoming GDC show in San Francisco this February to show off their system in person.

Rather than using hands or digits, the Audocron uses a series of beeps and flashing lights to indicate the current time.

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In automatic mode, the chrome plated metal clock offers up a chime on the half hour and hour. Otherwise, you can switch to manual mode, which tells the time with a series of “dings” upon your touch. Different tones indicate hours, ten minute intervals and individual minutes.

So if you’re looking for a truly unconventional clock, you can pick up an Audocron from ThinkGeek for just $19.99.

While TouchPal isn’t identical to the iPhone’s keyboard, it’s definitely more than reminiscent of Apple’s interface design. TouchPal’s QWERTY keyboard offers two characters (and punctuation marks) on each key, rather than the single character on the iPhone. This allows for easier typing with large fingers, or even with your thumbs. Simply click on a key, slide to the left, right or down to select the character, or let auto-completion finish words for you with a single click of the key.

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By incorporating a intelligent word-prediction system, the software claims typing speeds up to 300-characters per minute, and it really looks possible judging from the video clip above. I really dig the “associated word” capability which lets you quickly chose variants on a particular word stem.

The software works on all touchscreen Windows Mobile devices (version 5 or 6), and supports both VGA and QVGA screen resolutions. And there’s no reason not to try it out. TouchPal’s maker, CooTek is offering a free download of the software through December 8, 2007. After that time, TouchPal will retail for $19.98.

[MobilityToday via IntoMobile]

The Massage me jacket lets the person giving the massage get their game on while the person receiving the treatment gets to chill out. More intensive massage results in better game play, motivating the masseur to give a good rub down. According to the designer of the device “Otherwise wasted button-pushing energy is transformed into a massage and the addicted game player becomes an inexhaustible masseur.”

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Numerous pressure sensors are built into the jacket, converting massage into control signals for a video game console.

Since the jacket really just works in place of a traditional gamepad, it works with many off-the-shelf games. I’d imagine that “button-mashers” like fighting games are best, while first-person-shooters probably wouldn’t work all that well. I wonder if Dance Dance Revolution would work best if you walked on the person’s back?

[via Instructables]

Just like its portable inspiration, the Jumbotron DS has dual screens, with stylus-based control on the bottom one. However, these screens measure in at about 15-inches each, compared to the tiny 3-inch screens on the standard DS.

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To make it all work, Loopy used an FPGA to translate the input from the tablet PC back into data usable by the DS. While it all looks a bit like something out of Dr. Frankenstein’s (or Dexter’s) laboratory, I still think it’s a pretty clever hack.

Now if only I could figure out how to fit the damned thing in my pocket.

[via Kotaku]