Magnetic phone magic

摘要

No more fumbling in your pocket to silence your ringing phone in the cinema - a quick wave of your hand could now suffice. That's thanks to researchers at Deutsche Telekom (DT) in Berlin, who have developed a user interface based on the compass sensors now found in many cellphones. Their MagiTact prototype identifies changes to the magnetic field around a cellphone caused by different gestures made by a hand wearing a permanent magnet. The system scans several times a second for rapid changes in local magnetic fields to ensure that it is picking up on your gestures, not other magnetic fields.