FingerLink turns paper into touch screens

Turning paper into a touchscreen: Fujitsu’s FingerLink

(Credit: DigInfo News)

There are many gestural interfaces under development, but our fingers remain one of the most useful tools we have. Fujitsu’s FingerLink lets your fingers control a scanner and projector for printed information, acting as a bridge between digital and analog tech.

The prototype uses off-the-shelf cameras and projectors. Fujitsu’s image-processing software links the two.

It can accurately detect where your fingers are as you touch or swipe any printed matter, letting you copy text or images and project them elsewhere. The size of projected images can similarly be adjusted with a fingertip.

It could be useful if you’re leafing through a newspaper (remember those?) or something similarly unwieldy, and you want to quickly extract specific blocks of text or images.

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