In 2010, during a bitterly cold winter in South Korea, smartphone users discovered a surprising solution to the problem of using touchscreens with gloves: sausages. Unable to use their phones with covered hands, many began using meat sausages as styluses. The idea, while humorous, is grounded in solid physics. Touchscreens operate using a grid of transparent indium tin oxide embedded beneath the glass. This material can store and conduct electric charge. Human fingers, like sausages, are conductive—they can both store charge and allow electricity to pass through. When a conductive object like a finger or a sausage nears the screen, it disturbs the electrostatic field in the grid, which the phone detects and translates into a touch input. Objects that do not conduct electricity, like forks or gloved hands, fail to produce this effect. The viral sausage-stylus trend even boosted sales for one meat company by 40%. In short, your body—and your lunch—can control your phone thanks to conductivity and electrostatics.
Vocabulary:
• stylus (noun): a tool used to touch or write on a screen
• conduct (verb): to allow electricity or heat to pass through
• insulator (noun): a material that does not allow electricity or heat to pass through
• transmit (verb): to send something from one place to another
• static (adj): relating to electric charges at rest
• electrostatic (adj): caused by electric charges not in motion
• mesh (noun): a network of wires or threads woven together
• transparent (adj): clear and see-through
• charge (noun): electrical energy carried by particles
• disturb (verb): to interrupt the normal state of something
• interaction (noun): the effect things have on each other when they meet
• woolly (adj): made of wool or resembling wool
• pickle (noun): a vegetable preserved in vinegar or salty water
• grid (noun): a pattern of lines or wires that cross each other
Source: BBC