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http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/05/02/bridger.maxwell.multitouch/

17-year old develops multi-touch interface for Mac

updated 04:50 pm EDT, Fri May 2, 2008

 

Bridger Maxwell multitouch


Bridger Maxwell – a 17-year old from Orem, Utah – is currently developing a home-built multi-touch surface for Mac OS X, using a Frustrated Total Internal Reflection (FTIR) imaging method for a high school science project. Already creating a second incarnation, Maxwell improves on his previous design by using brighter LEDs mounted in a wooden frame. He uses an infrared camera to capture finger input, which appears to light up fingertips, when observed.

The design features three sides of the wooden frame with holes drilled for the LEDs to stick through, with the infrared camera mounted underneath. Maxwell used an open source solution called OpenTouch, and built onto it by developing a library to receive "Tangible User Interface Object" messages for Apple's Cocoa platform.

Maxwell also makes use of several Mac OS technologies, such as Core Animation for the overall presentation of the device's front-end.


by MacNN Staff

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 multi-touch, peripherals, Mac OS X, project
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Comments

  1. dliup

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jan 2006

    +8

    cool story

    Wow, cool read. That will be a tough science project to beat...

  1. Glasspusher

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Oct 2000

    0

    FTIR

    Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy

  1. themacjedicali

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 2007

    +5

    Emphasis

    Its funny how the older generations emphasize "17 year old" fill in the blank. Back in the day no one invented things at a young age because they didnt have such a vast and readily available thing as the internet. This will be the way things are more and more as time rolls on, since anyone can research and build things that before would have taken months in a library or an MIT degree to accomplish. GO Go gadget submit button!...

  1. Loren

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Mar 2001

    +3

    go west, young max

    I'm guessing Apple will snap up this fellow right away.

  1. Guest

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Nov 1999

    0

    multi touch

    Multi touch (Mac or otherwise) will not reach it's full potential until it's combined with a full featured voice recognition component.

    MN

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