Sihai network

Mobile phone case made of artificial skin will react differently when touched. Dare you use it?

The mobile phone protective cover covered with artificial skin may increase the experience for mobile devices such as mobile phones.

Video screenshot

Recently, Marc Teyssier, a researcher of Paris Telecom Group, designed a mobile phone case that looks like human skin. Users can interact with the mobile phone by touching this layer of 'skin'. He named the technology skin on interfaces.

He revealed to new scientists that the project was carried out in cooperation with researchers from HCI Sorbonne University and CNRS. The inspiration began with Teyssier's desire to pinch his mobile phone.

He wants to replace the hard and cold non tactile experience of devices such as smart phones with realistic 'human skin' (actually a layer of silica gel). The team used this technology to create two prototypes, a simple version and a very realistic version.

Programming artificial skin can detect different gestures, such as scratching, poking and pinching, and then associate them with various emotions. For example, the user can 'tap' the 'skin' to let the mobile phone know that he wants to get attention. Pinching and pulling means that he is upset. Gripping means that the user is angry and tickles it like tickling -- the system will display a laughing emoticon directly on the mobile phone screen. By wedging a layer of stretchable copper wire between the epidermis and subcutaneous layer of silica gel, the researchers made it possible that the copper wire was molded as flexible and tough as human skin, and the pressure exerted by the user on the skin would change the charge of the system.

Teyssier encountered challenges in developing skin on interfaces sensors, especially in developing scalable things that can also detect touch.

Teyssier told Gizmodo that he did not consider any specific applications when starting the project, but 'proposed the possible future of anthropomorphic devices.' Based on the long history of artificial skin in the field of robotics, researchers finally believe that 'the interactive characteristics of skin are particularly useful for human-computer interaction.' In essence, researchers believe that mobile phone skin can increase users' expressiveness.

'This idea may be a little surprising, but skin is a familiar thing. Why not use it to enrich the equipment we use every day? This study explores the intersection of human and machine. We have seen that in many studies, we try to use machines as a part of enhancing the human body. Now we change direction and try to make the devices we use every day more like us and more like humans. "