[HH] Add touch control to anything

[Tom Metro]

Anyone remember the Framingham, MA company that came up with a CRT
monitor stand with load cells built into the base? Any monitor placed on
top (with some calibration) instantly became a touch screen.

This story I saw today reminded me of that.

Multitouch On Any Surface With A Contact Microphone
http://techcrunch.com/2012/01/04/mogees-multitouch-on-any-surface-with-a-contact-microphone/

  Bruno Zamborlin's Mogees (an abbreviation of "mosaicing gestural
  surface") takes input from a contact microphone and analyzes it to
  determine the placement and direction of gestures on any surface
  through which vibrations can be detected.

The accompanying video doesn't show precision cursor control, but
instead shows how any surface can be turned into a musical instrument
that responds differently depending on where it is tapped or the gesture.

  What if you could put your iPhone on the table and, if it rang, tap
  the table once to answer, tap twice for speakerphone, put your whole
  hand down to silence it, etc?

That foretells some interesting possibilities for what you can do with a
phone app. and this sort of signal processing. (A while back there was a
story where some researches processed an audio signal captured from an
iPhone placed on a desk next to a keyboard and were able to determine
what was typed to something like 80% accuracy.)

 -Tom