This spray transforms your hand into a keyboard
Scientists have developed a kind of spray for your hands that allows you to type with your fingers without a physical keyboard. The movements of your fingers are registered and used as keyboard input. The system allows you to type on your phone or PC.
Keyboard spray
What if you could type anywhere with a full-sized keyboard without having to carry a keyboard with you? For example, you could work when you are on the road with public transport. Researchers at Stanford University have developed a hand spray that makes just that possible, which can be read on Nature Electronics.
The spray is made of a harmless material made of nanomesh. Your hand is equipped with a lot of small electronic sensors that bend with your hand. The sensors send raw data to a system that recognizes your movements using artificial intelligence (AI). For example, the AI can recognize that you are typing and then the typed text is displayed on a phone or PC. That already looks like this.
Sign language and VR
There are many more uses for this spray, because the system can also recognize hand gestures. In this way, for example, a deaf person could communicate in real time with someone who does not know sign language. On the other hand, it can also be used for virtual and augmented reality applications. We currently still use a controller in combination with a VR headset that actually replaces the hand, but this system could work more accurately in the long term.
At the moment, scientists are still tinkering with the spray and the AI and it is therefore still uncertain whether this development has a future, but the technology does appeal to the imagination. Are you good at touch typing or do you see other useful uses for the spray? Let us know in the comments.
