Abstract: Presented herein is Flippo, a social wearable creature configured and designed to support people to take breaks away from their desk and move, as well as to socialize with others by caring for their creature. Flippo may take the shape of a soft and fuzzy bug-like creature, and may “live” on people's shoes. The creature may occasionally nudge them when it needs to move and have social interaction with another creature from its species. It may do this by making sounds and visual effects, and may require that the wearers coordinate shaking their feet and helping the creatures face each other. If Flippo is satisfied with the interaction, it may display a light animation and play ‘happy’ tunes; if not, it may nudge the wearer again. The companion design may advantageously encourage and facilitate co-located social interaction.

Abstract: The problem of obtaining a multi-touch input sequence for use in user authentication is solved by determining, at a plurality of time instances, a mapping from an unordered set of at least four touch points to a an ordered set of at least four fingertips, wherein for at least one of the plurality of time instances, the mapping from the unordered set of at least four touch points to the ordered set of at least four fingertips is subject to a constraint that the ordered set of at least four touch points defines a simple polygon.

Abstract: The problem of obtaining a multi-touch input sequence for use in user authentication is solved by determining, at a plurality of time instances, a mapping from an unordered set of at least four touch points to a an ordered set of at least four fingertips, wherein for at least one of the plurality of time instances, the mapping from the unordered set of at least four touch points to the ordered set of at least four fingertips is subject to a constraint that the ordered set of at least four touch points defines a simple polygon.