United States – A prototype software allows users to write short messages directly “in the air” and send it automatically to an email address.

This is only a first step technology to allow users to mix real world and virtual environment: it allows them to write by drawing in the air to send the message.

Sandip Agrawal, of Duke University in North Carolina, who invented this software says: “One can hold the mobile as a pen and can write or draw small diagrams.

This technology uses accelerometers that are already present in some phones like the iPhone. These accelerometers are normally dedicated to recording the movements of the phone and its orientation to view the screen in portrait or landscape mode.

The drawback of the current prototype is to achieve pauses between each letter. One cannot use the cursive writing yet but we can hope for an improved version with better algorithms and accelerometers in the future. One potential application could be to quickly write a word on a photo taken with the mobile.

This application has already won several awards and should be downloadable in the coming months.