Interface

For many sufferers of aphasia, a disorder caused by stroke that impairs the language centers of the brain, simple things like writing or typing up emails become incredibly difficult. One inventor, though, has created an email interface based on the Kinect system that allows his mom to do the impossible, and send simple emails to her friends and family.  Read More

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories have announced a breakthrough in prosthetics that may one day allow artificial limbs to be controlled by their wearers as naturally as organic ones, as well as providing sensations of touch and feeling. The scientists have developed a new interface consisting of a porous, flexible, conductive, biocompatible material through which nerve fibers can grow and act as a sort of junction through which nerve impulses can pass to the prosthesis and data from the prosthesis back to the nerve. If this new interface is successful, it has the potential to one day allow nerves to be connected directly to artificial limbs.  Read More

We've previously featured a number of devices that give players a low latency interface to the world of device-based digital tone manipulation, but each one poses something of a risk for those who like to rock out. To reduce the chances of a connected tablet or laptop flying across the room as you twirl the guitar around your body Malmsteen-style, Ion Audio has developed a wireless system called Guitarlink Air that severs the physical link between device and instrument common to products like Apogee's JAM or the AcousticLink from Alesis.  Read More

Sneak peeks at future technology often come with a curious mixture of excitement (it's new!) and frustration (you have to wait ten years) and so it is with Mitsubishi's innovative EMIRAI automotive interface concept. While the system steers clear of the hands-free personal transportation envisioned in futuristic films such as Minority Report, it does explore interacting with your ride in some very compelling ways. From the looks of it, getting around by car will be a lot more interesting in a decade or so ... to say the least.  Read More

While modern smartphones can be operated by touch only, styluses certainly have not disappeared. An accurate stylus is actually a must when high precision is required. California-based company Atmel has unveiled a new addition to its touch interface solutions in the form of the maXStylus active stylus for Android 4.0 and Windows 8. It features a 1mm stylus tip, and simultaneous finger and stylus operation.  Read More

Small touchscreen devices such smartphones certainly have their attractions, but they also have one drawback – there isn’t much room on their little screens for touch-sensitive features. This means that users will sometimes instead have to go into sub-menus, or make do with jabbing their fingers at tiny controls. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University’s Human-Computer Interaction Institute, however, are working on an alternative. Their prototype TapSense system can differentiate between screen taps from different parts of the finger, and will perform different tasks accordingly.  Read More

Even though touch-sensitive digital music interfaces like Roger Linn's LinnStrument offer users access to whole new worlds of sonic expression, there's still something very appealing about the feel of real wood beneath the fingers. The Soundplane Model A throws cold plastic playing surfaces out the window and presents players with 150 walnut keys incorporating patent-pending continuous capacitive sensing technology, for a computer music controller with the feel of an acoustic instrument.  Read More

While more and more music is being created on computers with a QWERTY keyboard, researchers at the University of Southhampton are looking to bring the tangible interface one gets from actually playing an instrument to creating music on a computer. The Audio d-touch system uses a computer, a standard webcam, a printed sheet of paper and physical blocks that are moved around to determine how the computer samples and reproduces sound.  Read More

I have to admit to feeling a flutter of excitement when Digitech announced its programmable iPad pedalboard. Now it's the turn of vocalists, musicians of all kinds, producers and writers to access the wealth of digital music apps available for the iPad with the release of the iO Dock, from professional audio and studio equipment manufacturer Alesis.  Read More