Mouse on the move
A mouse, a keyboard, a Nunchuk - these are everyday gadgets that we use to interact with computers. Now a group of scientists want to add mobile phones to that list. As team member Dr Nick Pears explains ‘you don’t want the interface to get in the way of what you need.’ The obvious solution when you’re on the move is to use the phone in your pocket.

Based at the University of York, Dr Pears enjoys discussing the future of human-computer interfaces over a coffee with colleagues Dr Patrick Olivier and Daniel Jackson. Describing how it started he says, ‘Patrick conceived the idea of phones and computers interacting. I came up with the solution and Dan built the system.’

Like a jigsaw puzzle
Pears describes the main challenge, ‘If you've got a phone in your hand pointing at the screen, the computer will send information using the wireless link to your phone. The computer has to know what the phone is looking at. We call that display registration.’

The software works out the correspondence between the two devices. Pears uses an analogy to describe it, ‘Imagine you've got a simple jigsaw puzzle and you want to know where a single piece fits in. It's like taking a jigsaw piece and moving it around the image on the box to see where it best matches up in the bigger image. The jigsaw piece is the bit on the mobile phone and the box picture is the big screen on the PC.’

Pears elaborates on how it might be used: ‘Estate agents often use computer screens in their windows to display properties. You could use your mobile phone to select the property you wanted and click a button to send the document to your phone wirelessly.’

Personalized access
The phone is more than just a mouse. He says, ‘the next generation of phones, smartphones, will have touch sensitive screens, you have a little bit of the computer screen on your phone. It is like a mouse because you can use it like a 3D cursor but you could touch the display on your mobile phone screen and interact that way as well.’ The team see their system making human interaction with public information systems more personal.