Georgia Tech develops gesture system for cellphone games

If the team at Georgia Tech's Mobile Technologies Group has its way, you may soon be waving your cellphone around in order to play games with it. The group has developed a system for gesture-based games that uses the cellphone's camera to track hand movement. Prototype games include a version of Pong in which the player moves the whole phone to the left and right to control a paddle, and a drawing program that they say "demonstrates the various degrees of freedom." We can only imagine what kind of gestures they'll put together so you can play Doom on your phone.

[Via Picturephoning]

[knot_U @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Go georgia tech :0

__________________knot_U

[Sean @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

I love it when my alma mater continues to make us all look good long after I've graduated!

Go Jackets. The should let us make gadgets to cheat at football. Call it the "Gadget Bowl" - MIT v. GT or GT v. CalTech, Cornell v. Renssalear.

Maybe geeks could be good at sport...

[Ryan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

^ GT already cheats at football ^

And it hasn't helped you at all, has it? Enjoy your trip to the Emerald Bowl.

Go Dawgs.

[Adam @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

I hope they look at Leisure Suit Larry. I would love to play a game like that using �hand gestures� with my phone.

[xbit @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

This is hardly new. The Siemens SX1 (also based on Symbian) was released about two years ago and came with a shoot-'em-up game where you used the camera to control a cross-hair.

Good fun to play, but you looked a bit silly doing it. :)

[Sean @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

I'm sorry, I guess it's tougher for our guys to take courses toward their major and take a rigorous practice schedule. It's not like GT offers a "Turf Management" degree. A four-year degree on how to mow the lawn!

[Greg @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Already done also by Nokia with the fun shell, but instead of the camera it had some sort of gyro sensor and yes you do look funny when playing the games

[Side Step @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

That's my Nokia 6600 there! It has never once understood any of my gestures.

[Ben @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Don't come to this school its impossibly hard. All these articles and stories about GT having all this research crap....its not worth it. Go somewhere easier. I'm sitting in chemistry considering my final coming and am rethinking my decisions for attending Tech. Do yourself a favor and save what little normalness is left in your life. Don't exchange it for nerd-dom.

This group was test group E03. They used psychological torture for motivation of this group. Considering the positive results, I forsee I'll be subjected to the same within a year. Wish me luck.

[Ben @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention...
TO HELL WITH GEORGIA!!!

:p.

[Ryan @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

I didn't want to subject myself to nerd-dom, nor living in downtown ATL, that's why I didn't go to GT. However, my normal friends that did go to Tech where all in the management college. I wanted a specialized business degree, not to mention girls, so I went to UGA. Tech and UGA are both outstanding schools, you really can't argue with what the HOPE has done here in Georgia.

The basketball game should be interesting tonight. We'll see what happens.

[masmad @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

So basically they just copied VTT:s work?
http://www.vtt.fi/multimedia/presents/SymBall-article.pdf
(pdf-alert)

[Jacques @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Actually, at link-u mobile we wrote a game named 'Antar' that did the same thing about a year ago ... and it was in Java, using special tricks with the Nokia API to get fast capture.

Oh well, you look like an idiot playing it, but it's fun :-) There was also another game by a german company where you could chase virtual flies. It was a symbian app though.

See this:
http://mobile.link-u.com/index.php?p=game_antar

It was never distributed in the US (only Europe) but you can still get it on our shop:
http://linku.mobile31.com/index.php?p=v&id=3&l=en

[yet another Matt @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Dunno abount you, but even my slender fingers end up covering the lense on my camera when im not thinking.

Youll grab the phone a little tighter at a climatic moment in the game, and suddenly everything stops moving. Whats wrong with just using keys?

[Evan Brom @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

This is not new Killer Virus that came out for the S60 a few years ago used the camera to track movement.

[Cap'nStabbin @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

Oh please, Virginia Tech sucks the biggest donkey balls of any of the Tech schools around.

VT - HOME OF THE cHOKIES

[Sam @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

so, you're walking down the street playing this game and talking on your bluetooth headset... the people across the street see you waving your hands wildly at nothing and, of course, talking to yourself.

[Mike M. @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

To pile on with the "it's been done before" postings, motion-driven user interface products for various mobile devices have been around for at least five years. There was an add-on for GameBoy, an SD card for Palm, and so on. They all failed. The motion interface is hard to control precisely, it's erratic at best if you're riding in a moving vehicle like a train or bus, and most importantly it's very hard to see the screen when you're wiggling the device all over the place. Screens are supposed to stay in one place when we're looking at them.

I try never to say any technology has zero chance, but this sort of interface has to overcome huge barriers in order to succeed.

[Mike @ Dec 19th 2005 1:37AM]

And how are you supposed to focus on the screen if your waving it around? What a stupid idea!!!