If just thinking about using a
tiny touch screen on a smart watch has your fingers cramping up, researchers at
the University of California at Berkeley and Davis may soon offer some relief:
they’re developing a tiny chip that uses ultrasound waves to detect a slew of
gestures in three dimensions. The chip could be implanted in wearable gadgets.
The technology, called Chirp, is
slated to be spun out into its own company, Chirp Microsystems, to produce the
chips and sell them to hardware manufacturers. They hope that Chirp will
eventually be used in everything from helmet cams to smart watches—basically
any electronic device you want to control but don’t have a convenient way to do
so.
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