MIT Students Develop Ridiculously Cool Way To Transfer Data With A Finger Swipe
by Brent Dirks
May 8, 2012
A pair of MIT students have developed a working UI concept, using iOS devices, that looks like it came straight from Hollywood.
Natan Linder and Alexander List have designed Swÿp (pronounced Swipe), a piece of open-source software that uses cross-app, cross-device data exchange using physical ‘swipe’ gestures. Any explanation wouldn’t do the concept justice, so here’s a short demo video. Click here if you can’t see the video.
A very nice part of the software is that the iOS devices used were not modified in any way. Instead, the team used capabilities that the iPhone and iPad already had.
The concept isn’t perfect, though, as you can’t change the position of either device after creating a connection, or the link would be lost.
But that is definitely a small price to pay for such great looking technology. As far as when the concept will actually make its way to app form, the team is looking for developer help. You can follow the pair on Twitter @swyplove or on Swÿp’s website.
“Our hope is that developers would jump in and contribute to the open-source project, make it better and that app makers will incorporate it into their apps making them Swÿp enabled,” Linder says.And the vision for the capability extends past just iOS devices.
“Most recently we’ve been deploying a website wherein any Internet-connected device would be able to Swÿp with any other,” Linder says. “Our target is everyone who uses touch- and gesture-enabled devices, counting laptops and iPads, but also screens with a Kinect setup. But we are still early on, and even though we demonstrated the working tech, there is lots to do to fulfill our vision of different devices chatting to each other using nothing but user-generated gestures.”It sounds like we’ll all be more like Tony Stark and "The Avengers" sooner than later. (Source: Fast Company Design via Technabob)
