Google Glass to teach Morse code in 4 hours

Participants wearing Google Glass learned it without paying attention to the signals — they played games while feeling the taps and hearing the corresponding letters. 

After those few hours, they were 94 per cent accurate keying a sentence that included every letter of the alphabet and 98 per cent accurate writing codes for every letter, the researchers said. “Does this new study mean that people will rush out to learn Morse code? Probably not,” said lead researcher Thad Starner, Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology. 

“It shows that PHL (passive haptic learning) lowers the barrier to learn text-entry methods — something we need for smartwatches and any text-entry that doesn’t require you to look at your device or keyboard,” Starner said in a Georgia Tech statement. The same method — using vibrations while participants aren’t paying attention — has taught people braille, how to play the piano and improved hand sensation for those with partial spinal cord injury. 

In the current study, the team decided to use Glass because it has both a built-in speaker and tapper (Glass’s bone-conduction transducer). In the study, participants played a game while feeling vibration taps between their temple and ear. The taps represented the dots and dashes of Morse code and passively “taught” users through their tactile senses — even while they were distracted by the game.