麻豆传媒

Nose know-how

鈥淲ould male and female participants prefer nose-based gestures differently?鈥� That question is seldom asked. But Jorge-Luis P茅rez-Medina, Santiago Villarreal and Jean Vanderdonckt do ask it in their study published in the journal Sensors.

The question, they say, helped guide their effort to pull together a taxonomy of nose-based gestures, which they hope will help them design new electronic sensing capabilities into eyeglasses, wristwatches and other devices.

Nose-based gestures needn鈥檛 involve only the nose: any gesture that interacts with the nose can be considered nose-based. Fingers can be part of it, and so can other parts of the hand. Future research might involve other body parts and 鈥� maybe some day 鈥� foreign objects.

The researchers worked with 12 female volunteers and 12 male ones, asking them to make nose gestures to express specific commands, such as 鈥渢urn on the TV鈥�, 鈥渢urn off the TV鈥�, 鈥渢urn the volume up鈥� and 鈥渁nswer a phone call鈥�. They identified 912 distinct gestures, which they 鈥渃lustered into 53 unique gestures resulting in 23 categories, to form a taxonomy and a consensus set of 38 final gestures鈥�.

Some gestures are easy to express in words, others aren鈥檛. Commonly gestured gestures include 鈥渢ap鈥�, 鈥減ush鈥�, 鈥渇lick鈥�, 鈥渞ub鈥� and 鈥減inch鈥�. Among the gnarlier are 鈥渟nook鈥� and 鈥渉old nostrils open鈥�. Gymnastics may be involved in certain of the more complex gestures: 鈥渄ouble flick鈥�, 鈥渢riple pinch鈥� and 鈥渜uadruple drag鈥�, for example. In contrast, one sees the gross simplicity of 鈥渇inger in nose鈥�.

The study suggests that, mostly, no significant nose-gestural difference exists between men and women.

Further nose know-how

That nose-gesture study built on a small body of nasal-centric investigations done by others that haven鈥檛 yet drawn extensive follow-up work.

Vlastimil Havran wrote in to bring 鈥淣oseTapping鈥� to Feedback鈥檚 attention. In a study delivered at a conference in Lule氓, Sweden, in 2013, Ondrej Polacek, Thomas Grill and Manfred Tscheligi opened some eyes with their paper:

They begin on a touching note, with their focus on 鈥渘ose-based interaction in which people tap or swipe with their nose on a touchscreen鈥�. NoseTapping, they say, could benefit people who use smartphones while wearing gloves in winter.

It is also relatively good for brief interactions, such as unlocking the phone or indicating 鈥渘o鈥� versus 鈥測es鈥�. But there are hints about limits: 鈥減eople are not willing to use such interaction in case of more complex functionality like, for example, typing a message鈥�.

Limits also arise in a paper called , presented by Ann-Marie Horcher at a symposium in 2014. It identifies another drawback of NoseTapping: 鈥渢here were concerns about cleanliness鈥�.

Despite those concerns, Horcher proposes the use of nose prints, in which a nose pressed against a smart screen could be scanned, its image then becoming 鈥渁 biometric point of authentication鈥�.

Horcher鈥檚 early experiments, however, identify shortcomings: 鈥淭he lower sensitivity of the nose and no visual feedback made positioning of the nose for success problematic.鈥�

No place like Neom

A new city planned for the Tabuk region of Saudi Arabia will be, say the planners, unlike other cities. One way it will be different is in its proportion. The city is designed to be only 200 metres wide, but 170 kilometres long.

Called 鈥淭he Line鈥�, this new city is part of a larger project called . Like most of Neom, The Line is mostly in the exciting planning-and-publicity stage of construction.

It may not have escaped your notice that The Line鈥檚 proportion, 170,000 to 200 鈥� let鈥檚 call it the Neom ratio 鈥� differs from the ancient mathematical standard for beautiful proportion, the golden ratio.

The golden ratio鈥檚 exact value is an irrational number defined by a three-step recipe: take the square root of 5, add 1 to it, then divide by 2. Actuaries, when they loosen their ties and lapse into inexactitude, say the exact value is slightly more than 1.6.

The exact value of the Neom ratio is 850. This is slimness far exceeding that of the kilopedal millipede (Eumillipes persephone). At 95.7 millimetres long and 0.95 millimetres wide, the Australian millipede was recently documented in the study .

Nature is superabundant about patterns. Most simple patterns can be seen, if one pays attention, seemingly almost everywhere. The fruits of human manufacture are copious in the same way, with simple patterns recurring in various places. The Neom ratio can probably already be seen in the shape of many existing objects, and Feedback feels it would be intellectually exciting to identify and celebrate a few of these skinny standouts.

We invite you to help us amass a collection of the finest examples of the Neom ratio. What other physical objects have this same proportion, 170,000 to 200? Please tell us (being careful to supply clear examples, and to point to documentation thereof).

Got a story for Feedback?
You can send stories to Feedback by email at feedback@newscientist.com. Please include your home address. This week鈥檚 and past Feedbacks can be seen on our website.