GHOST: FUTURE TECHNOLOGY

GHOST: FUTURE TECHNOLOGY FOR 3-D

INTERACTIVE DISPLAY

A new and exciting technology may allow users to change the shape of displays with their hands revolutionising the way humans interact with smart phones, laptops, tablets, and computers. With this technology a user could pull objects and data out of the TV or tablet or computer screen and manipulate then n midair.

          In 2013, a project called GHOST (Generic, Highly Organic shape changing Interfaces), funded by the European Union, was designed to allow a human to manipulate digital objects using computers and mobile devices as an interface. The GHOST program which involves four partners in the UK, Netherlands and Denmark is slated to end by December 2015 and has received funds totalling 1.93 million Euros from the European Union’s Future Technologies program.

          Professor Kasper Hornbǣk of the University of Copenhagen, coordinator of GHOST promises that designers would be able t manipulate and change the shapes of the digital objects on the screen by just pulling it out into the air. Today’s smart devices allow people to tap and change the screen display with their fingers or use special pointers to  change  shapes o the screen. But using advanced ultrasound levitation technology, a user could manage to project the display out of the flat screen and into mid-air. A user could even push her fingers into deformable screens that would allow touch and feel.

          A user could handle objects and even data in a completely new way. For example, a surgeon could train on a virtual brain on the screen with full tactile experience before performing the actual surgery. Artists, designers, architects and engineers could use virtual clay to mould or re-mould objects and store these designs in the computer’s memory for late use and compilation into the final project.

          GHOST researchers have tried to create deformable user interfaces that resemble pads and sponges that musicians could use to control timbre, speed and other parameters in electronically generated music.

          An application called ‘Emerge’ allows data in bar harts to be pulled out of the screen by using the fingertips. For example,  if the bar chart shows the results of an  election or  pattern of rainfall in a place, it can  then recorded, broken down column by column, or row by row, individually to produce a  better display.

          The researchers have been working  n  ‘morphemes’, which are flexible mobile devices that use Lycra  or alloy displays  which an bend or stretch according to use, These displays  have the ability to change shape  automatically to form screens to shield the fingers when a pin codes entered or move the display to the twists and turns of a video game. The display also allows user to enlarge the image by pulling it into the hand and after examining it, by zooming in to reduce it and consign it into a safe store like a virtual pocket or case n the computer.