Touchscreens continue to advance\u2014including progress towards sensing fingers proximal to the display. We explore this emerging pre-touch modality via a self-capacitance touchscreen that can sense multiple fingers above a mobile device, as well as grip around the screen\u2019s edges. This capability opens up many possibilities for mobile interaction. For example, using pre-touch in an anticipatory role affords an \u201cad-lib interface\u201d that fades in a different UI\u2014appropriate to the context\u2014as the user approaches one-handed with a thumb, two-handed with an index finger, or even with a pinch or two thumbs. Or we can interpret pre-touch in a retroactive manner that leverages the approach trajectory to discern whether the user made contact with a ballistic vs. a finely-targeted motion. Pre-touch also enables hybrid touch + hover gestures, such as selecting an icon with the thumb while bringing a second finger into range to invoke a context menu at a convenient location. Collectively these techniques illustrate how pre-touch sensing offers an intriguing new back-channel for mobile interaction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Touchscreens continue to advance\u2014including progress towards sensing fingers proximal to the display. We explore this emerging pre-touch modality via a self-capacitance touchscreen that can sense multiple fingers above a mobile device, as well as grip around the screen\u2019s edges. This capability opens up many possibilities for mobile interaction. For example, using pre-touch in an anticipatory […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":334202,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"research-area":[13554],"msr-video-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-312335","msr-video","type-msr-video","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","msr-research-area-human-computer-interaction","msr-locale-en_us"],"msr_download_urls":"","msr_external_url":"https:\/\/youtu.be\/4XGPbiEX5Tc","msr_secondary_video_url":"","msr_video_file":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-video\/312335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-video"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-video"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-video\/312335\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=312335"},{"taxonomy":"msr-video-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-video-type?post=312335"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=312335"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=312335"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=312335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}