Thumbnail Track-pad - Cosmetic that turns into wearable technology

Wearable electronics is one of the many talked about areas these days that is attracting a lot of attention as almost all big electronics manufacturers are coming up with many fascinating gadgets that can be worn on the body. Early association of wearable electronics could be linked to medical industry where different implants or wearable gargets are used for fitness and heath tracking like gadgets for ECG monitoring, sugar level monitoring, hydration level monitoring and lot more. But today we have a bunch of wearable products that are meant for consumer market for the computing needs of the users. These gadgets can either be worn as clothing or as accessories for examples Google Glass, Apple Smart Watch etc.

These gadgets add to the fashion statement and probably this is the reason Fashion Electronics and Fashionably Technology have become synonyms for wearable electronics. In addition to making a fashion statement there are other important advantages of wearable technology - it offers personal safety, offers ubiquitous computing, convenience and health monitoring & tracking.

Recently I came across a new product prototype in this league which unlike clothing and accessories uses cosmetic as a new wearable technology. Inspired by colorful nail stickers worn of women in Asian countries MIT Media Laboratory has developed a Thumbnail track pad which converts user's thumbnail into miniature wireless track pad.

Thumbnail Track-pad paired with smart phone

The electronics that goes into making this interesting gadget consists of capacitive touch pad (same as what we find on our smart phones), microcontroller, Bluetooth radio chip and battery. Real innovation or novelty of the hardware of this device is fitting all the components in a small form factor such that it can be worn on a thumbnail and also the design of an antenna and isolate it from the electronics so that there is no interference. The software design consists of understanding the movement on the capacitive touch pad and translating it into a movement on screen. It can be turned-on by maintaining a finger contact for 2-3 seconds.

Thumbnail Track-pad components

There are numerous applications of this tiny device. You can connect it with any Bluetooth enabled device and control the device by just moving your index finger on your thumbnail. You can for example pair it with your smart phone and just by the movement of your index finger on your thumbnail you can make calls, send texts and do a whole lot of things with ease, convenience and without any hassle or obstruction. We have seen voice command operated applications for smart phones which offer ease of computing to the user. I think this device may offer similar ease with more security and privacy which may not be there in voice operated commands.

I have seen a couple of videos and read a couple of scenarios online where utility, benefits and capabilities of this device is shown. In one of the videos user draws a very accurate square box on a screen of her smart phone by simply moving her index finger on the thumbnail. It is quite fast and real time. In other video a lady is tossing salad with both hands and at the same time browsing on her computer (probably reading a recipe!!!). It is quite fascinating. Then there is this scenario; let us say you are having a meal in a party with plate in your hands and your phone rings, you can easily take the call or discard it by just moving your index finger on your thumbnail, similarly if you are in a meeting and your phone rings you may just move your finger on your thumbnail to send a text "I am in a meeting call you later" provided you are wearing NailO - yes exactly this is a name MIT graduate students have chosen for their Thumbnail track pad.

You may look at the videos I just mentioned on http://news.mit.edu/2015/wearable-thumbnail-sensor-controls-digital-devices-0417

By-Sagar Juneja, Research Associate, Chitkara University

References

http://news.mit.edu/2015/wearable-thumbnail-sensor-controls-digital-devices-0417