Force Sensing Technology

Posted By: Sarah Perez | Apr 28th @ 10:42 AM

An article on BBC News blog, dot.life, features an interesting project from Microsoft Research: force sensing technology. In a research paper cleverly titled "I Sense a Disturbance in the Force" (available here), researchers from Microsoft's Cambridge Lab -James Scott, Lorna Brown and Mike Molloy - describe how force sensing technology could be used to perform actions on mobile devices. Using a prototype made from a Samsung UMPC, the researchers created a way for people to interact with the mobile device by tilting, twisting, bending, or squeezing it. These movements let the device's users perform actions like flipping a page in a document or switching between applications. No word as to when we'll see this technology in our handhelds, but it definitely opens up some possibilities for future research in this area.