St Andrews researchers make phones even smarter

● New tech allows device to recognise surface placed on ● Software shown at international event in Austria

Smartphones could soon be able to carry out a range of tasks just by recognising what surface they are sitting on, thanks to pioneers from the University of St Andrews.

The team’s system, known as Specam, needs no additional hardware as it uses the phone’s screen to flash a series of colours when placed face down on a surface. The light bounces back to the handset’s camera, where the image data is analysed to detect the type of material.

Depending on the surface, the phone could be programmed to perform different functions. For example, if placed on a coffee table, it could play dance music, changing to jazz when moved to a sofa.

Lead researcher Professor Aaron Quigley, chair of human-computer interaction at the University of St Andrews’ school of computer science, told The Scotsman: “The surface of the world around you becomes a canvas for your imagination.

“For example, you can set it to change the music and light settings when placed on a bedside table, or play a cooking programme when it’s moved to the kitchen table. You can customise it very simply and it’s very discreet, so if a phone call comes in while you’re having dinner, it can send a message back saying you’re busy. There’s a need for a lot more polite technology than we have right now.”

The system needs a period of training, using machine learning, to teach it different surfaces, and if the phone is placed on an unfamiliar material, such as a kitchen worktop or bedside table, it will ask the user where it is to help it become “location aware”.

Quigley added: “I’m most proud of the fact that we worked with a colleague who has a background in physics and we did a benchmarking against a very expensive spectrometer – we performed better than this device that costs thousands of pounds.

“That’s because a spectrometer uses a tiny point of light but the phone uses the whole screen so can take in more surface data.

“It’s like looking through a keyhole compared with looking through a window. Specam can tell the difference between a ceramic plate and a porcelain one.”

He said the software – which has been showcased at an international conference on human-computer interaction in Vienna – could eventually become part of a smartphone’s operating system, but in the meantime he is keen for developers to take the idea and run with it. Amazon has opened a hunt for a second home, pledging to spend more than $5 billion (£3.8bn) to build another headquarters in North America. The e-commerce giant will stay in its sprawling Seattle headquarters, and the new space will be “a full equal” with as many as 50,000 jobs, said founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos. The announcement will create a scramble among cities and states vying to make the shortlist. Cities have to apply through a special website.