Media Releases

The way you interact with your mobile devices is about to change

December 3, 2014

TORONTO, ON—Poking at your smart­phone with your fin­ger is so 2014—it’s time to find new ways to inter­face with the mobile devices we all car­ry.

That’s the chal­lenge Pro­fes­sor Parham Aara­bi of The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Depart­ment of Elec­tri­cal & Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing at Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to posed to his grad­u­ate class.

“I encour­aged stu­dents to think out­side the box of how we inter­act with mobile devices, includ­ing wear­ables,” says Pro­fes­sor Aara­bi. “I want­ed them think: can we do bet­ter?”

On Mon­day, Decem­ber 8, 2014, grad­u­ate stu­dents will present the six strongest prod­ucts to arise from the exer­cise. Expect to see total­ly new ways to lever­age the smart­phones, tablets and wear­ables you rely on dai­ly.

The final­ists are:

Bar­code Pass­port—Nev­er car­ry a wal­let again with a vir­tu­al bar­code that replaces your cards
Whis­tle Find­er—Lost your phone? Whis­tle for it, and it whis­tles back
Motion Cam—For­get fum­bling for buttons—take a pic­ture with a flick of the wrist
Clap Con­troller—Ditch the hand­held click­er and clap to advance a pre­sen­ta­tion
OweME—Who still owes you for din­ner last night? Keep track of mon­ey leant and bor­rowed
Pla­ceIt— Ever wish you had vir­tu­al loca­tion-based sticky notes? Pla­ceIt is exact­ly that, remind­ing you of notes as you arrive at dif­fer­ent des­ti­na­tions

Pro­fes­sor Aara­bi and each of the groups will be avail­able for inter­views fol­low­ing the pre­sen­ta­tions.

Event Details

What: Unveil­ing the Future of Mobile UI
When: Mon­day, Decem­ber 8, 2014
Time: 2:00 – 4:00 p.m.
Where: Bahen Cen­tre for Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, Room 1210, 30 St. George Street, Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to M5S 2E4
Map: http://map.utoronto.ca/building/080

-30-

For more infor­ma­tion, con­tact:

Mar­it Mitchell
Senior com­mu­ni­ca­tions offi­cer
The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Depart­ment of Elec­tri­cal & Com­put­er Engi­neer­ing
416–978-7997; marit.mitchell@utoronto.ca