Paper Reading #14: Madgets: Actuating Widgets on Interactive Tabletops

Note: I skipped the number between 12 and 14 out of superstition.

Comment 1: http://chiblog.sjmorrow.com/2011/03/paper-reading-13-teslatouch.html
Comment 2: http://csce436-nabors.blogspot.com/2011/02/reading-13-teslatouch-electrovibration.html

Madgets: Actuating Widgets on Interactive Tabletops
Malte Weiss, Florian Schwarz, Simon Jakubowski, Jan Borchers
User Interface Software and Technology

This paper covered the use of devices that the authors are calling Madgets. They are magnetic devices that interact with surface tabletop computers that allow the user to have further control. As tabletop computing is becoming more and more available and much more research is being done with it many people are being asked to use these devices without knowing how to use them or being able to easily use the multi-touch features to their fullest. These various devices will help in this and make the transition easier on users. The current state of art uses devices called SLAPWidgets that allow for objects like buttons, knobs, sliders and other simple manipulation tools but these again have limited use and are sometimes views as cumbersome. This group plans to use the known premise of under-table camera projection combined with a layer of electromagnets for positioning that will allow a wide variety of devices to be adapted to the table and assist in its production. There has also been work done with haptic feedback and tangible pucks that the user grabs with their whole hand and use them to perform the action (SO COOL!!). The authors then went into their lengthy discussion of the hardware involved and the algorithms used to detect where different objects were on the table and were placed and how they moved over the table. The authors did say that while their system requires a lot of user testing to see how people really take to it, the prototype was not quite finished as they were still working out some of the mechanics and they had yet to complete these. They were in this process and eager to get going so that they can get some of the valuable user feedback.

Again this is another fascinating system that has too many technical requirements that I don't overly understand and there is no prototype built and no study done that I can't do more research into it and see how users are ACTUALLY using it versus how the authors thought it would take. I really like the idea that if I was using a multi-touch tabletop I would be able to have a various number of devices that would allow this experience to be more modal and more natural feeling. I think that if tabletop computers become a real thing they will have lots of items set on them and for the most part be treated like tables. If it were the case that a system like this could be adapted to detect any kind of object then it would be neat to be able to use my bottle of water as a control and flick through news articles in the morning or be able to watch some internet tv while making my morning toast. In fact these services would possibly be the future of computing and even have uses in solving crimes or being able to identify who an object belongs to and what it has been used for. Imagine if we could place a murder weapon or a piece of one onto a table and the table tells us who it belongs to and when it was purchased. I think the project is a good start into this kind of technology and hope it gets more done with it in the future.