Media: TRN reviews Keyhole Mobile Computer

"Handhelds gain space" by Kimberly Patch in Technology Research News reports on a device that turns the small screen of a handheld computer into a 'movable keyhole'. Rather than pressing scroll buttons to get to a position in a document, a user simply moves the handheld computer.

The researcher at the University of California at Berkeley, Ka-Ping Yee, has produced a screen as a window onto a larger virtual document. To navigate to the lower left corner of an on-screen map, a user would move the computer in and to the left.

'The idea sprung from real-world frustration over the sluggishness of small-screen navigation. "I was motivated by wanting to position the view directly instead of having to wait for the view to scroll," Yee said.'

This is a substantial article on the development.
The research is scheduled for presentation at CHI 2003 in Fort Lauderdale as "Peephole Displays: Pen Interaction on Spatially Aware Handheld Computers" but read about it here first!

Associated Link: TRN: Handhelds gain space

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