‘Pinch’ Interface Connects Touch Devices Into One Giant Display

 

It might not have the sophistication of the XDesk tabletop interface, but in development by a research group at the Tokyo University of Technology, a new interface named ‘Pinch’ allows users to connect various touch-enabled devices together into one larger, mismatched but quite remarkable screen.

Brillaintly simple, the user only has to place a thumb and index finger on two adjacent screens before ‘pinching’ to pair them up into one singular display, even if the linked devices have different sized screens. What’s more, each screen can be lined up in whichever alignment the user behind the devices chooses, whether vertical or horizontal, using a system in which each device shares its position and screen size via Wi-Fi to another.

“People probably own just one of these devices each. So, I think people could communicate in fun ways, by getting together with friends and putting their devices next to each other.”

Takashi Ohta, Associate Professor at Tokyo University of Technology

So far, the technology is little more than a tech demo, though the team behind it is hopeful to see it enter the hands of app developers and businesses alike in order for them to unlock the potential behind this quite swish interface; “We'd like people to use this system to develop apps. So, we're offering Pinch to developers and are basically just asking them to do something with it. We've just started several projects like that.”

Richard Birkett

Source: DigInfo