Scientists have designed a new pair of smart eyeglasses that can allow you to control a smartphone or a computer discreetly by rubbing and scratching your nose.
The glasses were designed as an experiment by researchers from KAIST University in South Korea and Keio University in Japan to create a way to control a wearable device without calling attention to the user in public.
Three electrooculography (EOG) sensors are embedded in the bridge and nosepads of the frame of the spectacles, which measure the electric potential of the surrounding flesh.
These types of sensors are usually used to record eye activity for doctors, or re-creating realistic eye movements in animated movies.
When the wearer touches the nose in different ways, it changes the electric potential of the organ, and the sensors can identify specific signatures of different motions.
These include flicking and pushing the nose to one side or the other, and rubbing the bottom.
The system, dubbed ItchyNose, could be used to minimise social awkwardness when using wearable computers, Juyoung Lee, from the KAIST University.
"If an important text from a spouse came in during a business meeting, the user could check it and dismiss it quickly without calling undue attention to the interaction," Lee was quoted as saying by 'The Verge'.
"Similarly, if the user had a list of names and faces to remind her of who is in the meeting, she could scroll through the list until she found the person whose name she forgot," he said.
The current challenge for the team is to enable the system to distinguish between intentional and unintentional nose scratches.
The answer is training the system to adapt to each individuals own mannerisms, researchers said.
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