Blui

[Gesslar]

I swear I don't make this stuff up!

http://www.news.com/8301-13580_3-9816998-39.html

Perhaps huffing at your computer might get you somewhere if research at the Georgia Institute of Technology comes to fruition.

[Aristotle]

Um... I am pretty sure the Nintendo DS already makes use of this concept.

[Rosuav]

Like voice navigation, this is a technology that's really neat, but of little or no value to most people. However, and also like voice navig, there will be certain specific applications in which something like this will be invaluable - it's direct interaction, like a touch-screen, but it doesn't need a special screen. I'm sure there will be improvements possible, too - improvements in resolution and accuracy - and you never know, it might become mainstream as a simple way to make broad selections without moving your hands. Think, for instance, of your typical editing toolbar - it might be possible to make a blowable version of a few tools, as an alternative to the keyboard shortcuts.

[Gesslar]

I just told my coworker and she has a DS and she says she can't blow on her DS to make it do anything.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by karahd
I just told my coworker and she has a DS and she says she can't blow on her DS to make it do anything.

...

She would have to have one of the games that makes use of it. I believe it worked via the speaker as well.

A quick google search came up with this game as an example:

http://nds.gamezone.com/gamesell/p32466.htm

"blow into the Nintendo DS mic to fire spitballs"

You can't just blow the DS to make it do what you want. Its not like her boss.

[anthson]

Originally posted by Aristotle
You can't just blow the DS to make it do what you want. Its not like her boss.

ZING!

[aelyn]

It took me forever to figure out that you could blow to solve things with the DS. My boyfriend actually had to show me.

We'll leave it at that.

Seriously, though, I think it's kinda neat - Zelda and Cooking Mama are two games that I know that make use of it. There's also things where you can like, close the DS to "stamp" from the top screen to the bottom. Nifty little machine

[Thierran]

I blow bubbles for my Nintendog all the time. Took me 3 months and a ton of tapping the screen to figure out how to do it. Also, there is a mini-game in The Goblet of Fire that makes use of the function.

[Thasifrew]

This might be an interesting technology for parapalegics or people suffering from muscular degenerative diseases. Its most useful form would be as a USB peripheral with build-in drivers, allowing the people who need it to just clip a transparent screen over the monitor (with help, of course) and get to work with minimal interference. Granted, most of the same people retain finger control and could easier use a touch-pad or analog control stick.

Of greater interest: how do these researchers get funding for this kind of project? Is it the work of grad students that gets appropriated by their supervisors, or do companies Really, Truly spend money on this stuff?

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by reysan
This might be an interesting technology for parapalegics or people suffering from muscular degenerative diseases. Its most useful form would be as a USB peripheral with build-in drivers, allowing the people who need it to just clip a transparent screen over the monitor (with help, of course) and get to work with minimal interference. Granted, most of the same people retain finger control and could easier use a touch-pad or analog control stick.

As I understand it, you don't even need that. It just uses the microphone. It's demonstrated there in the video with a T-series Thinkpad, which has the microphone near the screen; I don't know if it would work as well with an R-series Thinkpad (microphone front right), or other locations of microphone. But it doesn't need any sort of screen over the monitor, which is its main advantage over touchscreens (which require dedicated hardware).

Of greater interest: how do these researchers get funding for this kind of project? Is it the work of grad students that gets appropriated by their supervisors, or do companies Really, Truly spend money on this stuff?

The authorship etc info identifies it as "Georgia Institute of Technology" research, so I guess it's grad or undergrad work. Someone who knows universities better can probably deduce more. I gather from the PDF document that it's one of those accessibility works - probably funded by a grants board that researches/funds work in areas of arm-free living and such. (I'm sure there's a proper term for this but I can't think what.)

Couple of snippets from their PDF:

One important consideration is the placement of the microphone.
An effective position is near the screen and pointed
towards the center location of the screen. Fortunately, embedded
microphones in the latest notebook computers are
on the top of the keyboard because that location also tends
to be the ideal position for speech capture. For desktops,
we found that placing the microphone 10 cm from the
lower corner of the display screen and pointed towards the
center of the screen achieves the desired effect.

Because our approach is does not
require any additional hardware or instrumentation, it is
also cost effective.