'Body Talk' Could Control Mobiles
From: BBC News - 04/04/2005
By: Jo Twist

University of Glasgow professor Stephen Brewster says the use of Visually
based mobile-device interfaces on the move can be problematic, and his team
has been working on "audio clouds" to increase the safety and ease of use of
such gadgets by facilitating control and operation via sound and movement.
"We hope to develop interfaces that are truly mobile, allowing users to
concentrate on the real world while interacting with their mobile device as
naturally as if they were talking to a friend while walking," Brewster
explains. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council is funding
the three-year audio clouds research project. Brewster and his Multimodal
Interaction Group have devised a method for controlling gadgets using
gestural input and 3D audio output; the latter involves the development of
bone conductant headphones. The team has also been working on systems that
employ motion-sensitive accelerometers that instruct devices. One student
project involves a wizard game where each player possesses one of the setups
prototyped by Brewster's team. The scheme involves a person "hearing" another
person in a different location through the audio cloud, and using gestures to
interact with the other person. The Multimodal Interaction Group is also
investigating techniques for managing the vast amount of data and functions
accessible via smart phones, but Brewster expects a considerable amount of
time to pass before audio-cloud gadget control becomes inexpensive and
socially acceptable. 

Read the entire article at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4398439.stm

Links:
Multimodal Interaction Group
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~stephen/

Stephen Brewster
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~stephen/aboutme.shtml

AudioClouds
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~jhw/audioclouds/