Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have created a new way to turn almost any surface into a touchpad with just a little conductive spray paint. The system, called Electrick, uses a technique called “electric field tomography.”
Created by CMU Ph.D. student Yang Zhang, Electrick uses small electrodes attached to the edges of a painted surface and it can turn wood, plastic, drywall, and even Jell-O and Play-Doh into a touch sensitive surface. They’ve successfully added touch sensitivity with positional control to toys, guitars, and walls.
“For the first time, we’ve been able to take a can of spray paint and put a touch screen on almost anything,” said assistant professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute, Chris Harrison.
Like many touchscreens, Electrick relies on the shunting effect — when a finger touches the touchpad, it shunts a bit of electric current to ground. By attaching multiple electrodes to the periphery of an object or conductive coating, Zhang and his colleagues showed they could localize where and when such shunting occurs. They did this by using electric field tomography — sequentially running small amounts of current through the electrodes in pairs and noting any voltage differences.
The creators envision tools like interactive walls and even an interactive smartphone case that can sense the position of a finger on the back surface and interact with apps on the phone. You can also add a protective coating to the paint to keep it from chipping off.
Zhang will show off the technology at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Denver....
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If sentiment is any indication, the bullion markets look to be bottoming. Metals investors bought with enthusiasm for most of the time since the 2011 peak in prices. They put up with years of declining prices, often looking at dips as a buying opportunity. But the most recent price smash is more than some bullion investors can stomach, and they are headed for the door.
Customers are selling physical metal in much larger quantities than normal. One prominent precious metals dealer reports customer sell orders outstripping buy orders by 30%.
Our experience is not that extreme. Over the past two weeks, orders to sell are one-third the amount of customer buy orders. That isn’t exactly panic selling. But compared to the years in which customers sold just 1-2% of the amount being purchased, the current activity nevertheless represents a sea change.
Investors are beyond frustrated with the broken and rigged price discovery in metals. The most recent selloff is just the latest example of bullion banks using hot money to knock down prices.
Open interest in silver futures made a new all-time high in the days before the market began to slide. Bankers and other commercial traders took out record numbers of short positions.
They offered up fresh contracts for any and all comers – unconstrained by having to back their paper with physical bars.
In their playground, virtually no one asks or cares that futures exchange vaults generally contain less than an ounce of actual silver for every 100 ounces promised on paper. Yet that is where spot prices are set.
Now the hot money is beating a hasty retreat out of silver and gold. Bankers are covering their shorts with a handsome