Can your hair control a smartphone?How will you believe it? Believe it or not but you can actually control your smartphone by just stroking your hair. How is it possible?
Brazilian New Technology
In Brazil people can control their smartphones by activating the sensors that are hidden in their hair. It is actually a new technology and this particular technology is called Hairware.
What is this Hairware all about?
Hairware is invented by Katia Vega of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and this new technology is hairy because it is all about hair. The users of this particular technology need to wear hair extensions that include conductive hair filaments that has a switch that discreetly activate apps by touching it a set number of times. You need to touch the filament in a very sepcific way so that it can activate your smartphone app.
According to the inventor of this new technology, the Hairware can be of help especially to women who feel not safe, who feel threatened, and if a certain situation would not permit her to use her hand to manipulate with her phone the hairware technology can do that for her by just touching her hair in a specific manner to activate a preset emergency text message.
Further, it is also reported that there is Arduino microcontroller and a Bluetooth radio in a hairclip provide the system’s intelligence and connectivity, with an algorithm learning over time when the user has intended to trigger an action.
The hair’s ability to store electric charge changes when touched and this can be used to set controls. For example, stroking it once activates one app and touching twice launches another. Vega has plans to extend Hairware and turn beards into active app controllers too.
The technology presentation transpired at IUI 2015, a user interface conference in Atlanta, Georgia.