SurfaceLink

SurfaceLink is a system where users can make natural surface gestures to control association and information transfer among a set of devices placed on a mutually shared surface (e.g., a table). SurfaceLink uses a combination of on-device accelerometers, vibration motors, speakers, and microphones (and, optionally, an off-device contact microphone for greater sensitivity) to sense gestures performed on the shared surface. SurfaceLink was a project that Mayank Goel started with me when he was a summer intern at Samsung Research America. I was Mayank’s mentor and also provided the use cases and scenarios for this work focused on multi-device interactions. Watch the video above for a quick overview of how it works or read the paper below for additional technical details.