It goes without saying that us humans have been particularly good with our tools, otherwise how could we have lasted against far larger and fiercer animals over the thousands of years in the past? Having said that, the use of tools in this day and age have also expanded, especially in the realm of touchscreen devices. There are times when the leap in technology would require us to learn of new gestures, but what if existing methods of tool handling in the real world can be applied in a digital interface?
Chris Harrison of Carnegie Mellon University intends to champion this particular line of thought, where TouchTools happens to be a new form of touchscreen interface which will use existing gestures that we are familiar with in the real world, before applying them for use in the digital world.
Take for instance, how natural that everyone knows how to hold a camera and basically, snap a photo. The main idea is to snap something on your tablet screen, using the same gesture where the display would then be able to figure out just what you are doing exactly at that moment before snapping the photo. Perhaps you need to erase a mistake – no matter, just move your hand back and forth as though you were erasing a wayward pencil line on a sheet of paper, and the touchscreen will get down and dirty.
This remains an experimental concept as at press time, and it remains to be seen whether TouchTools will catch on in the long run.
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