Beauty Technology: Muscle based Computing Interaction

Transcription

1 Beauty Technology: Muscle based Computing Interaction Katia Vega Department of Informatics, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro R. Marquês de São Vicente, Gávea, Rio de Janeiro, , Brazil kvega@inf.puc-rio.br Hugo Fuks Department of Informatics, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro R. Marquês de São Vicente, Gávea, Rio de Janeiro, , Brazil hugo@inf.puc-rio.br Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). Copyright is held by the author/owner(s). ITS'13, October 6 9, 2013, St. Andrews, United Kingdom. ACM /13/10. Abstract Wearable Computing had changed the way individuals interact with computers, intertwining natural capabilities of the human body with processing apparatus. But most of this technology had been designed just for clothing or accessories and it is still flat and rigid, giving the wearer a cyborg look. Beauty Technology, based on electromagnetic devices that are embedded into non-invasive beauty products, opens new possibilities for interacting with different surfaces and devices. It locates wearable technologies on the body surface and makes use of muscle movements as an interactive interface. This work introduces the term Beauty Technology as an emergent field in Wearable Computing. It discusses the materials and processes used for developing the Beauty Tech prototypes and present some examples of the use of beauty technologies in everyday beauty products. Author Keywords Beauty Technology; Wearable Computers ACM Classification Keywords H.5.2 [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces - Haptics I/O, Interaction styles. General Terms Design. 469

2 Introduction Wearables add more than physical, social and psychological variables. The accessibility, reliability and miniaturization of technology make it possible to create new wearables devices and increase the possibilities of interacting with the world. In contrast of this technology advances, the human factors do not change that fast. Our bodies mainly maintained the same shapes and sizes, and the same way of controlling our muscle movements. Thus, gives us the opportunity to control embed sensors and actuators onto our body surface using our muscle movements as the interface. Technologies for sensing information in personal spaces like blinking, pulse rates and respiration monitoring have being increasingly progressed in recent years. These technologies have the potential to empower human with new capabilities; wearable computing is a key component for interacting in that world. Our aim is to create hidden embedded electronics in everyday life objects. We describe this as "Beauty Technology", an emerging field in Wearable Computers. We explore the use of products on the human body surface, hiding the electronics, and ensuring the devices are easy to attach and remove, are ergonomic and highlight the wearer s personality. Beauty Technology products interact through the body using body muscle movements like blinking and finger movements. They also interact with other surfaces like water by approximating fingernails to a hidden device. Related Work Humans use a wide variety of muscles for creating gestures. They range from simple actions of using the hand to point at objects to the more complex actions that express feelings and communicate with others. Body movements are classified in micro-movements and macro-movements [1] that could be used as both implicit and explicit input for human-computer interaction. Muscles movements are a clear representation of a user s intent [2]. Computing vision offers a possibility for hands-free interfaces to sense movements and gestures, and reproduce them in a 3D environment [3]. However, it presents some issues like occlusion and lighting limit the opportunities [4]. Electromyography (EMG) is another technique that has being used for detecting muscular movements. In this technique, users must wear gel-based sensors very tight to users muscles with adhesives [5], [6]. Wearable Computers could be attached on the body surface for measuring and monitoring physiological data. Recently skin mounted epidermal electronics developed biomedical devices in the style of tattoos [7]. Mc10 is proposing smart sensing stickers for medicine, therapy and healthcare in a bandage-like device [8]. They printed electronic mesh into a flexible and thin plastic that is malleable and adaptable to the human skin as a removable tattoo in order to obtain signals from the heart, muscle, body temperature and motion, signals from the brain, and even hydration levels. In the Arts field, LEDs are located next to the eyes connected by thin wires. They can simulate larger eyes [9] or act as eye shadow lights when the eyes are closed [10]. Even though the privacy and health issues are still evolving, wearers nevertheless seize opportunities to experiment with the sensation of being injected with tiny electronic devices not just for health management, but also looking for new experiences and fashion, like tattoo implants for using the skin as a 470

3 Figure 1. AquaDJing, mixing tracks touching water surface. Figure 2. Gimmickiano, Beauty Tech Nails play the piano by interacting with a wearable device. display [11] and chipping humans with RFID implants for tracking people s comings and goings [12, 13]. Fingertips are in direct contact with objects that humans interact and finger s muscles are fine controlled by our motor system. Thus, devices mounted on nails and fingers have being developed for mobile and ubiquitous interactions. Nail mounted displays are one example of wearable devices that augment reality by providing a visual feedback to the wearer [14]. NailDisplay [15] is an OLED display coupled with sensors atop a fingernail and Fingernail Displays [16] envisions the use of a nail polish that auto configures an active matrix colour display. Rings could embed several sensors for gesture recognition like FingerRing [17] that places rings coupled with accelerometers on every finger and Pingu [18] that detects motion and orientation by accelerometers, gyroscopes and magnetometers. Tracking hand s motion by magnets is another technique used for identifying gestures. Neya [19] and Abracadabra [20] make use of a tracking bracelet that detects the input of a magnet ring. Beauty Technology Beauty technology are wearable devices that act as removable and hidden electronics attached to body surfaces enabling wearers to interact with the digital world without interfering in everyday activities. In particular, the term includes electronics embedded into beauty products. Common beauty products are easy to attach and remove, are designed ergonomically for human bodies, are widely available and enhance the wearer s physical appearance. This work adapted beauty products and embedded electronics for increasing the possibilities for wearers to interact with the world. False eyelashes, false nails, conductive makeup and capacitance tattoos are some examples of beauty products that were adapted with electronic components in order to create actuators that communicate with the wearer, other objects and the virtual world. For example, instead of using a staff card for opening the office door, a special finger movement with RFID TechNails could identify employees and grant them access. Beauty Tech Nails Beauty Tech Nails embed electromagnetic components into fake nails in order to interact with the world in different ways and through different materials. These nails contain embedded magnets for amplifying the wearers capabilities by giving the sense of reading magnetic fields but also give them access to different objects. For example, these magnetic nails could interact with tablets and smartphones that have magnetic sensors and smart object with embedded smart switches. Beauty Tech Nails could also embed RFIDs. A RFID nails wearer makes a secret combination of finger movements to open the door in the project called Abrete Sesamo. AquaDJing is another project where a DJ could change between different tracks by touching into the water with her RFID nails (Figure 1). Twinkle Nails is a project that translates into a note each nails aproximation to a box that hides the RFID reader. In the project Gimmickiano (Figure 2), a pianist moves around the auditorium, and aproximates each fingernail to the wearable thus, the notes are played and displayed in a piano visualization. The wearable send the played notes to the computer by Radio modules. 471

4 Conductive Makeup Beauty Technology proposes the use of makeup for understanding blinking and other muscle s movements [21]. We used conductive makeup that connects sensors and actuators by the use of conductive materials that stick to the skin as well-defined eyeliners and eyebrows (Figure 3). it is not specifically approved for use on the skin. Even more, for using it as eyeliner as this product is soluble to water, the humidity of the eyes and skin could cause issues for the wearer. Thus, we move to create some stickers that look like makeup, they are conductive and easy to remove from skin. We used a thin conductive fabric tape and cut it in a makeup shape and covered it with different common makeup inks for giving it the appearance of normal makeup. Fake eyelashes were chemically metalized with an activation and electrolysis process. Figure 3. Beauty Tech Conductive Makeup. Dicky Ma Conductive makeup connects sensors, actuators and their connections in an attractive way that the wearer s observers would not notice the hidden circuit. Our first step for using conductive eyeliner was using conductive ink [22]. We faced the issue that though the ink we were using is a safe material to have around the body, In order to avoid using any electronic device on the wearer s face, skin conductive material was applied as black eyeliner to connect conductive false eyelashes to the wearable device. These eyelashes were chemically metalized in order to maintain the natural black colour of the eyelashes. The chemical process was carried out in 2 phases: Activation and Electrolysis. During the first phase, the false eyelashes, being plastic nonconducting surfaces, require that activation to enable them to be used in an electrochemical process. The first activate was made using Hydrogen and Tin Chloride and then a silver nitrate solution was added in the second activate, setting up the eyelashes as catalysts of electron transfer reactions and ready for metalizing. The electrolysis phase deposits a layer of nickel on our eyelashes to plate them. It made use of copper for making the eyelashes electrically conductive and black nickel for the natural black effect of the eyelashes. As an example, a character called Arcana is a futuristic angel that communicates by amplifying her blinking and creates gestures that activates different music tracks and displays different images. Superhero is another example of the conductive false eyelashes and makeup used to levitate objects just by blinking. Eyelashes worked like switches that were connected to 472

5 circuit into a headband that sends signals via module radio to control the object by infrared. Blinklifier [23] is another project that made use of conductive makeup. It is a wearable computer that amplifies human blinking and minimizes the use of intrusive devices on the face such as heavy glasses and electromyography. It follows the natural eye muscles contractions, extending that motion into a visible light array that changes pattern depending on the blinking gesture. Figure 3 shows Blinklifier pattern when both eyes are open. Conclusion and Future Work Beauty technology gives wearers the opportunity to experiment in the customization of these technosensual objects, highlighting their personalities and even more, keeping the mystery of hidden technology, changing its appearance each day. They could play changing the makeup colour and eyeliner intensity, nail polish and decoration but the functionality is kept. Muscle-based interface was used as the interactive strategy. Beauty Technology hides electromagnet components to sense voluntary and involuntary movements. In this work, blinking and finger movement were analyzed. Beauty products were customized and attached circuits or electronic components, or transform them in order to create this Beauty Technology. This technology will be used for develop different wearables and interact with other smart objects and surfaces. The first technologies developed for Beauty Technology were conductive makeup for connecting sensors and actuators on the face, black false eyelashes that were chemically metalized for acting as switches for understanding blinking and fake nails that hide RFID glass capsule tags, magnets and conductive materials. Beauty Technology Interactions could be done in 2 ways. The first interaction is through devices on the same wearer environment. Beauty Tech products are connected to wearable device like the projects Arcana and Blinklifier that connected the eyelashes and the wearable device through conductive eyeliner. Another way of interaction is through wearables devices and smart objects outside the wearer environment. Electromagnetic devices on the skin surface without any physical connection to other device (like Beauty Tech Nails projects). This interaction makes it possible that the Beauty Tech Products could interact with different surfaces like water, and other devices like smart objects and smartphones. Future work will include the evaluation of materials for creating new Beauty Technologies like a colourful conductive eye shadow that is flexible and adaptable to the eyelid and a conductive nail polish. Acknowledgements Katia Vega (grant /2010-1) and Hugo Fuks (Project /2008-4) are recipients of grants awarded by the National Research Council (CNPq). This work was partially financed by Research Support Foundation of the State of Rio de Janeiro (E- 26/170028/2008) and CNPq ( /2009-9). References [1] J.H. Abawajy, Human-computer interaction in ubiquitous computing environments, International Journal of Pervasive Computing and Communications, Vol. 5 (2009)

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