  We contribute MIDAS as a novel sensing solution for characterizing everyday
objects using thermal dissipation. MIDAS takes advantage of the fact that
anytime a person touches an object it results in heat transfer. By capturing
and modeling the dissipation of the transferred heat, e.g., through the
decrease in the captured thermal radiation, MIDAS can characterize the object
and determine its material. We validate MIDAS through extensive empirical
benchmarks and demonstrate that MIDAS offers an innovative sensing modality
that can recognize a wide range of materials with up to 83% accuracy and
generalize to variations in the people interacting with objects. We also
demonstrate that MIDAS can detect thermal dissipation through objects, up to 2
mm thickness, and support analysis of multiple objects that are interacted with
