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Wall++ Paint Transforms Walls Into Interactive Touchpads

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University  introduce a low-cost sensing approach called Wall++. They used conductive paint to create electrodes across the surface of a wall, enabling it to act both as a touchpad to track users' touch and an electromagnetic sensor to detect and track electrical devices and appliances. The electrode wall can operate in two modes - capacitive sensing and electromagnetic (EM) sensing. In capacitive sensing, the wall functions like a capacitive touchpad: when a person touches the wall, the touch distorts the wall's electrostatic field at that point. In EM sensing mode, the electrode can detect the distinctive electromagnetic signatures of electrical or electronic devices, enabling the system to identify the devices and their locations.