As convergence becomes a desirable route to take in gadgetry, easier access to its various features has become an aim for MIT’s Brandon Taylor and Michael Bove. These two decided it would be useful to expand device’s capability to sense what it’s going to be used for and change interfaces like how a phone’s screen dims during a phone call. What they came up was a “bar of soap” device – a basic gadget with an LCD screen on the front and rear, a three-axis accelerometer and 72 sensors to keep track of where the users’ fingers are positioned.
Like what it was designed to do, the gadget can change its interface based on how the user holds it – PDA, cell phone, remote control, game controller and camera are some of its possible modes. By testing the prototype of the device on 13 users, it was determined that it would work better if it’s optimized for each user rather than as a generalized gadget. This means that if ever the technology becomes widespread, we could see devices that could be customized and hence be more personalized than the gadgets we commonly see today.
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