Facilitating interaction with large displays in smart spaces

Large displays are widely equipped in Smart Spaces these days. However, traditional interaction devices which are designed to suit desktop screen, such as mice, keyboards, have various limitations in such environments. In this paper, we present a novel human-computer interaction system, known as the CollabPointer, for facilitating interaction with large displays in Smart Spaces. A laser pointer integrated with three additional buttons and wireless communication modules is induced as input device in our system and three features distinguish the CollabPointer, from other interaction technologies.First, the coordinates of the red laser point on the screen emitted by the laser pointer are interpreted as the cursor's position and the additional buttons on it wirelessly emulate a mouse's buttons through radio frequency. It enables remote interaction at any distance.Second, when multiple users are interacting, with two-steps associating methods described in this paper, our system can identify different laser pointers and support multi-user collaboration.Last but not least, the laser pointer emits its identity through radio frequency during interaction. The system receives it and treats different users separately.In the end, the CollabPointer, has been implemented in the Smart Classroom [1]- a prototype of Smart Space, and the results of user studies show the benefit of it.