Using touch technology similar to those in smartphones, a small wrist band could soon control all sorts of devices, including sensing when you are sitting down and flicking on the telly for you.
Do you find the remote control too much hassle? Is taking your phone out of your pocket to adjust the volume just too much like hard work? Well Disney hear you and they may have discovered a way to make life even easier for those of us who are genetically lazy sods.
As you know, your touch screen phone works by picking up tiny electric pulses from your skin. That’s why they don’t work when you have gloves on, causing no end of hassle in the winter.
Anyway, what the lads in Disney Research, an in-no-way sinister sounding bunch, have developed a wrist band that picks up these electronic pulses, and then sends the info to other devices about the house.
Not only can it sense touch but the system, called Touche, can sense the type of touch, including various pinching movements and other hand motions.
By sitting down, your couch would sense that and automatically switch on the TV, ending the horror of having to turn it on yourself like a caveman, while the device can also sense when you doze off, automatically turning the box off and dimming the lights. Handy eh?
The researchers even reckon that you could just motion on the palm of your hand to turn up or down the volume on your phone, TV or lights, making all home electronics controllable by you without any help from pesky remotes.
It sounds amazing but with Disney behind it, we fully expect this to come on stream very soon.