Fingernail Display Seen as Handy Technology for Future Touch Screens

Researchers in Taiwan are developing a remote control system that will turn finger-nails into mini-display screens. Using wirelessly-enabled, lite emitting diodes, the team says the technology could revolutionize the way we control and use devices such as smart phones and tablets.

Published

3 months ago

Categories

Technology

Topics

Future Tech, Consumer Electronics

Transcript

The prototype is mounted on a clunky thumb ring, but for fat-fingered smart-screen users, it could herald a breakthrough. The display is designed to reveal screen images or characters obscured by a thumb or a finger. One day, says Professor Chen -Bing Yu, the prototype will have evolved into an organic light-emitting coating that can be painted onto a fingernail, transforming it an interactive display screen.. (SOUNDBITE) NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS AND MULTIMEDIA LABORATORY PROFESSOR ,CHEN BING-YU, SAYING: "We often say that with a touch screen, you touch what you see, but you can't see it when you are touching it, so we wondered if we could see what we touch. Starting with this concept and adding it to the wearable devices we've been working on in the past few years, that was how we came up with the nail display." Researcher Chan Liwei says the system will one day be wireless…although it must also be user friendly. (SOUNDBITE) ACADEMIA SINICA RESEARCH CENTER FOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION POSTDOCTORAL FELLOW, CHAN LIWEI, SAYING: "We thought about how to control the device when we made it, because the screen is very small, and we wondered if it was really usable. We tried to display different words and symbols to see when they became too small for the human eyes, and to understand what types of symbols are the easiest to comprehend." If they're successful, the device will have other applications as well. The prototype houses an accelerometer, allowing portable devices like music players to be controlled by simple finger movements..or cell phones to be answered remotely. The researchers say it make take some time to get there but they believe a future of interactive, wearable devices, is at their fingertips.