Most of our devices utilize touch technology in some way: the track pads on our laptops, the screens on all-in-one desktops, and just about everything on our smartphones. Even when the gestures are deemed “intuitive” by the manufacturers, in reality they are unnatural movements we get used to by using these devices.

Chris Harrison of CMU’s Future Interfaces Group is working on a set of virtual tools called Touchtools that mimic the physical tools we use in the real world, making our interactions with technology simpler and more life-like. The suite of tools includes a marker, a large eraser, a small eraser, a camera, a tape measure, a magnifying glass, and even a computer mouse.

By using gestures that correspond to the way we would handle these objects in real life, the novel interfaces make remembering and using the actions simple and truly intuitive. Users hold their hands in the position they would if using that tool in real life, pressing a hand into the screen to activate and use the tool.

Rather than the cumbersome toolbars that some programs utilize, the Touchtools allow for fluid interactions with the device. There’s no learning new commands or remembering how many fingers to zoom or double-click; just the natural motions of using real-world tools converted to a digital setting.

The post Conceptual Digital Tools Use Real-World Hand Gestures first appeared on Gajitz.

Losing your keys, wallet, or kid can be a pretty harrowing experience. Take it from this editor who recently found a set of keys that had been missing for two weeks…in the most obvious place possible. No one will ever have to deal with that panic again once everyone is using the many smartphone-based electronic “tag” products that are either in development or currently on the market.

Another contender has thrown its hat into the ring: a San Diego startup called XY. Their product consists of a small $17 hexagonal tag that you can attach to nearly any physical object, even to your pet’s collar. The tag is tethered to your smartphone via an Android or iPhone app using Bluetooth Low Energy technology. Each connected tag is also registered on the XY website. The app pings the tags every 15-30 seconds; when your lost tagged item is within the 50-150 foot range, you can use the app to guide you to it. When you start to walk off without something important (or it walks off without you) the app will alert you.

But the real stand-out feature of XY is its user interface. You can snap a picture to go along with every tagged item, so when you’ve lost one of your items you have a simple visual cue to help you find it. You can look up the item’s last known location and go back to retrieve it, or if another XY user finds it they can alert you through the app. The only drawback seems to be the app’s lack of precise location. It will tell you when you’re getting warmer or colder in relation to the lost item, but it can’t pinpoint exactly where it is. XY’s Kickstarter campaign raised far more than its goal, and the team hopes to integrate competitors’ tag hardware in their app in the near future.

The post Getting Warmer: Inexpensive Tag Keeps Track of Lost Stuff first appeared on Gajitz.

When describing a new type of smartphone technology, the term “Handedness-Agnostic” probably wouldn’t come to mind. But that’s one of many slogans dreamed up for Vice Versa, a conceptual user interface that improves on the user experience by taking into consideration how the human body works.

Most of us experience the irritating button layout on smartphone screens several times daily. In the current setup, our thumbs are forced to contort in ways that are unnatural and uncomfortable when we are using our phones with one hand -which, according to designer Michael Oh‘s research, 49% of us do.

The main idea behind Vice Versa is that it accommodates the thumb’s natural motion. And a simple flick of the wrist changes the left/right handed orientation of Vice Versa, making it the first ever politically correct user interface by being “Handedness-Agnostic.”

Vice Versa is a “diagonal form of binary UI optimized for single-hand use” that can be used across multiple platforms. Used on a Kindle as seen here, it can help alleviate the frustration of accidentally turning multiple pages at once and then having to switch hands to reverse the mistake. This is just one of the reasons Michael Oh dove into the challenge of inventing a whole new user interface – and we hope to see it in use on our gadgets someday soon.

The post Diagonal Touchscreen UI Takes it Easy on Human Thumbs first appeared on Gajitz.