Category Archives: Ubiquitous Computing

Tiramisu App Wins FCC Chairman’s Award

The Carnegie Mellon research team that created Tiramisu, a smartphone app that enables transit riders to create realtime information about bus schedules and seating, has won this year’s Federal Communications Commission Chairman’s Award for Advancement in Accessibility in the Geo-Location Services category.

The crowdsourcing app was launched in Pittsburgh in 2011 and now also is in use in Syracuse, NY. Preparations are underway to deploy it in Brooklyn, NY.

Tiramisu Transit was developed by researchers in the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center on Accessible Public Transportation (RERC-APT), funded by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research. The work is also supported in part by CMU’s Traffic21 initiative and the US Department of Transportation.

WorldKit: Ad Hoc Interactive Applications on Everyday Surfaces

Creating interfaces in the world, where and when we need them, has been a persistent goal of research areas such as ubiquitous computing, augmented reality, and mobile computing. The WorldKit system makes use of a paired depth camera and projector to make ordinary surfaces instantly interactive. Using this system, touch-based interactivity can, without prior calibration, be placed on nearly any unmodified surface literally with a wave of the hand, as can other new forms of sensed interaction. From a user perspective, such interfaces are easy enough to instantiate that they could, if desired, be recreated or modified “each time we sat down” by “painting” them next to us. From the programmer’s perspective, our system encapsulates these capabilities in a simple set of abstractions that make the creation of interfaces quick and easy. Further, it is extensible to new, custom interactors in a way that closely mimics conventional 2D graphical user interfaces, hiding much of the complexity of working in this new domain.

OmniTouch: Wearable Multitouch Interaction Everywhere

OmniTouch is a body-worn projection/sensing system that enables graphical, interactive, multitouch input on everyday surfaces. Our shoulder-worn implementation allows users to manipulate interfaces projected onto the environment (e.g., walls, tables), held objects (e.g., notepads, books), and even their own bodies (e.g., hands, lap). This approach allows users to capitalize on the tremendous surface area the real world provides. For example, the surface area of one hand alone exceeds that of typical smartphone; tables are often an order of magnitude larger than a tablet computer. If these ad hoc surfaces can be appropriated in an on-demand way, users could retain all of the benefits of mobility while simultaneously expanding the interactive capability. 

Acoustic Barcodes

Acoustic Barcodes are structured patterns of physical notches that, when swiped with a fingernail, produce a complex sound that can be resolved to a unique ID number. A single, inexpensive contact microphone attached to a surface or object is used to capture the waveform. Acoustic Barcodes could be used for information retrieval or to triggering interactive functions. They are passive, durable and inexpensive to produce. Further, they can be applied to a wide range of materials and objects, including plastic, wood, glass and stone.

CMU Student Startup Places Payments at Users’ Fingertips

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It may take two to tango, but payments now are as easy as one touch.

Four Carnegie Mellon University seniors tired of digging through backpacks, pockets and purses for their student identification and debit cards have developed PayTango, a fingerprint-based identification and payment system.

With majors ranging from information systems and human-computer interaction to industrial design, Brian Groudan, Kelly Lau-Kee, Umang Patel and Christian Reyes combined their expertise to launch their startup.

“We believe you should be able to walk into any establishment and prove who you are without carrying anything — no apps, no cards,” Groudan said. “PayTango can be used for everyday activities like paying for a morning coffee or critical scenarios like identifying patients’ medical information in a hospital.”

The startup is attracting attention from media and potential investors. Inc. magazine recently named it among “America’s Coolest College Startups” for 2013.