Explaining how he has used his laptop to “create a touchscreen out of thin air.”
Texas A&M student Jon Moeller certainly wasn’t the first toddler to stick an object into an electrical outlet, but his shocking introduction to electricity gave him more than tears and a sore behind.
“I had this button and I had pulled the pen out and I remember sticking it in an electrical socket and seeing it spark. It left a terrible impact on me,” Moeller laughed.
Maybe his success as a computer scientist didn’t start with the outlet, but it began at a young age.
“I’ve always been kind of a tinkerer. As a kid I would always take stuff apart and my parents would be really frustrated because I wouldn’t put it back together,” Moeller recalled.
Moeller is earning a master’s degree in computer science at Texas A&M, where he also completed his bachelor’s degree in computer engineering. He works in the Interface Ecology Lab at the university, where he and four others have designed a groundbreaking invention called ZeroTouch.
“[ZeroTouch] is like a picture frame, and you put it on your TV, and your TV can act like a large IPad or IPhone,” Moeller said.
ZeroTouch is a thin, transparent device that allows for free-air interactivity. According to a ZeroTouch advertisement, “People can reach through and interact with computers in a completely new way.”
The invention has earned publicity for Moeller and attracted the attention of electronics retailer Best Buy, which featured Moeller in its “Future Innovators” commercial that began airing last week.
Moeller said he and the other four who worked on ZeroTouch were contacted via email by a talent agency interested in the mastermind behind the project. Moeller was contacted and interviewed over Skype.
via The Eagle – Brooke West
