The Gestural and Audio Interactions for Mobile Environments (GAIME) project is a 3 year EPSRC-funded project (2007-2010) in the Department of Computing Science at the University of Glasgow. This project will look into ways to reduce the reliance on graphical displays and hands by investigating gesture input from other locations on the body combined with three-dimensional sound for output.
Previous projects have concentrated on gestures done with hands or fingers where the user accesses applications by holding a phone and moving it to different areas of the body. In many mobile settings it may not be possible for a user to operate a device that needs one or two hands. Alternative methods will be studied to provide effective techniques for hands-free input when on the move.
The use of 3D sound allows us to expand the audio display
space. This allows us to present sounds as coming from around
the users head - in front, behind, above or below. This gives us
much more space to represent audio feedback and can stop the
audio space becoming as cluttered as the visual (especially
important on mobile computing
devices).
