Use Your Walls To Control Your House

By Roland Piquepaille

In a brief story named "Anywhere Interface," Technology Review writes that a small French company, Sensitive Object, has found a way to turn any rigid surface into an interface for all kinds of electronic devices. The technology involves only very cheap sensors and a process named "time reversal acoustics." When you tap on a surface equipped with the technology, you can use up to 544 'virtual' keys to start your heating system, type your e-mails or stop the DVD player. In retail stores, you could 'click' on a mannequin to find the price of the clothes. The Register ("Keyboards are old -- tap tables to send email") and the New York Times ("Knock 3 Times on the Ceiling (to Turn on the DVD Player)") also published stories about this interesting technology. Read more...

Let's start with Technology Review (it's so short that I reproduce it in its entirety).

French physicists Ros Kiri Ing and Mathias Fink have figured out how to turn any rigid surface into an interface for electronic systems. The technology -- which the pair hope to commercialize via their Paris-based startup, Sensitive Object -- uses one or two inexpensive accelerometers to detect finger taps on, say, a storefront display window or a keyboard drawn on a blackboard.

A computer chip calculates the precise origin of each tap and translates that information into mouse clicks and keystrokes. Users might use the technology, for example, to 'click' on a storefront mannequin's hat to learn its price. Ing says the technique has advantages over other user interfaces under development because it can work with a surface as large as four square meters, and the number of 'keys' can reach 544.

Here, a traditional school blackboard, equipped with cheap sensors, is turned into an input device for the computer (Credit: Sensitive Object).

As it is often the case, The Register used a somewhat irreverent tone. Here are the two opening paragraphs.

A startup whose technology will allow you to turn virtually anything into an input device, so for example you could use a table to change channel or pick up the phone, or control your computer by banging your head on the wall, has received