The current prototype of "BT balance" allows the user to scroll through menus and applications, by turning the calculator and tips.A special adapter with built-in accelerometers make it possible. It can be put in every Tablet PC that has a USB interface.
The user then moves the computer recognizes the sensor direction. Special software then interprets it and sends it to the user interface. "We wanted to create a kind of high-speed magic drawing board," said BT researcher David Chatting, applications for the prototype wrote.
The trick was to sensitize the user that the move could affect the computer what to see on the screen. "One of my first applications was that you had to maneuver a marble with the computer. So I wanted to demonstrate to the user that the way he holds the device directly determines what happens on the screen. The result is almost a physical connection. "
Chatting newer applications are not yet quite simple. A user moves the computer to the left and right, to select between different menus. Look at the selection when he pulls the machine up. "We do not intend to completely Windows Vista or Mac OS X rebuild," says the researcher.
An interesting example is a software that can turn over the pages of the users of a virtual book in which he tends the computer. The movement of the cursor and clicking on links are displayed.
"The technology is ideal for people who are disabled or old, and problems with normal laptop chrome keyboard and mice have" says Adam Oliver, head of the "BT Age and Disability Research Program" in the BT Balance was developed. "We want to create an interface that is easy and intuitive. The current standards for the PC operation is too complicated."
Accelerometers are already used in numerous devices. So they sit with the aforementioned Wii console in the controllers, which then provide raw data about body movement, which in turn are translated into onscreen action. Such sensors also help with the image stabilization of camcorders. Typically, they are so small that they can to the class of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) include.
BT is not the first company that MEMS acceleration sensors built into portable electronics. Nike and Apple use for example in a product called the iPod Sport Kit on it. The sensor used here is placed on the sneaker to track run data, which are then transferred to an iPod music player. Some Tablet PCs and PDAs offer thanks to accelerometers even a function where the desktop is always displayed right justified, no matter how the device is held. Even parked with the help of technology the hard drive of laptops, if it is recognized that they fall to the ground.
BT's approach of an inexpensive computer that can be controlled efficiently with motion sensors, but far more difficult than any of these applications. January Korvink, MEMS expert at the University of Freiburg, keeps the idea is interesting though is, but remember that there still are the so-called drift problem.
This means the slow destruction of micro-sensors due to overheating and the susceptibility to noise: "The device must be constantly re-vote." Especially cheap sensors in mass-produced electronics products suffered from drift.
An even bigger problem, however, is actually related to a "killer application" for such a computer control. This, according Korvink much research effort is needed to discover how the user wants to use such a device at all. In addition, the software must be extremely user friendly.
A possible example is the Chumby computer, an internet device about the size of a coffee cup, which displays information from the network and feed it with your own applications (widgets) can. The soon to be available gadget uses an accelerometer as part of the input unit. "The question is how many developers are able to remember the Newtonian physics to the sensor at all to use them effectively," said Chumby software guru Duane Maxwell. According to Maxwell, the company experimented with including a software where you can control a news feed by tilting the device.
BT-man Chatting is well aware that his work is not yet ready for commercial applications. "In the seventies, we have also tried to find out what you can do with a mouse. We need to learn a lot." The researcher hopes soon to start a field test in which he receives feedback from real users what they would like to start with such a computer.
