The End Of The Keyboard (And The Pen): Groundbreaking ‘Airwriting’ Glove Lets You Write In Mid Air

2 Min Read

A group of German researchers have unveiled a hi-tech glove that lets people write messages in the air.

This could mean the end of the keyboard, as well as the pen.

It’s called the “airwriter,” and is able to work out messages people write by monitoring the position of the user’s hand.

They say it could be capable of entering text messages and writing emails.

‘The airwriting glove is used to write letters into air, as if using an invisible board or pad,’ said doctoral student Christoph Amma, who developed the system at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.

“The interaction is embedded seamlessly in everyday life.”

Researchers believe the technology could be woven into any type of fabric, and so could be worn every day by users.

A glove holds sensors which record hand movements, and a computer system captures these movements and translates them into text.

The sensor is able to discern between natural movements and movements a user makes when they are actually writing.

“All movements that are not similar to writing, such as cooking, doing laundry, waving to someone, are ignored,” Amma said. “The system runs in the background without interpreting every movement as computer input.”

Currently, the system can recognize complete sentences with capital letters and has a vocabulary of 8,000 words.

“The system has an error rate of 11 percent, but when it is adapted to the individual writing style of the user, the error rate drops to three percent.”

To help develop the idea, Amma received the ‘Google Faculty Research Award’, worth $81,000, raising hopes it could be used with Google’s Glass wearer.

Scientists are now working on further refining the method to filter out writing, and making the system smaller.

‘This can be achieved with commercial components. An unobtrusive wrist band might be feasible, for example,’ says Amma.

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