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It is often said that the opposite thumb was one of Nature’s smart invention. It allows us to grab easily and do a variety of things. Now, an Indian entrepreneur is set to enhance the thumb capability through electronics and software. Welcome FIN, a success in pre-orders as reported by GizBot.
Fin is a ring you can wear on your thumb and it is able to detect movements and rely them via Bluetooth.
In several cultures, Indian to start with, the movement of the thumb to hall in calculation is a widely used practice. Hence people are used to use their thumb in everyday life. The ring can tell where the thumb is and what it touches (what finger and what phalanx is being touched).
This information is relayed to an application connected via Bluetooth that can use it as a command.
The entrepreneur has sought financing on the web explaining the idea and showing the prototype on you tube, see the clip. The response has been overwhelming, indicating that the possibility of using your hands as interaction device is appealing to many people. I am not sure that Italians would show the same enthusiasm shown in India, because in Italy we are using the whole hand to signal/express our feelings, but fingers are seldom used to support communications (apart from doe very basic gesture). Hence, there would be a steeper adoption curve than in India.
Still, I find this kind of innovations quite interesting since they are trying to exploit seamlessly the way we communicate to augment it leveraging on electronics and software.
