gesture
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Shoulder-mounted camera could extend human abilities
No question about it, strapping a webcam to your dome or rocking a set of unsightly head-mounted displays can kill a substantial amount of time, but researchers from the University of Bristol are looking at more practical uses of wearable cameras. A shoulder-mounted camera system that "automatically tracks head movements and can recognize hand gestures" has been developed in the UK, and eventually, they hope for it to recognize what the user is doing and make his / her life easier by communicating with other devices based on their actions. The cam is controlled wirelessly by a host computer, which "uses the camera's output to keep track of objects, map its position and recognize different hand gestures made by the user." Interestingly, the perched device even includes a trio of motors for muti-directional assistance, and built-in inertia sensors keep it level with the dips and dodges of life. Of course, we can't promise you that everyone (like mall security) will take kindly to a Big Brother-type device flanked on your shoulder, but at least you won't have to hire a bodyguard to watch your back, right?
Inventor crafts inexpensive gesture-based 3D touchpad
While there's been boasting galore about gesture-based keyboards, scanners, phones, and more keyboards, it looks like an elusive inventor has crafted yet another "3D touchpad" which can be moved around and placed on (or under) nearly any keyboard that you'd like to implement gesture-based technology on. As with similar renditions, the pad can detect movements of your hand floating above it, and can create inputs not always possible on a typical keyboard. Interestingly, this flavor can purportedly work on standard boards, underneath laptop boards, and even under the "screen of a PDA or cellphone." While our skeptic gear is still zipped on tight, it's said that a few working examples are already out of the lab, and that the special antennas capable of picking up hand movements wouldn't cost much more than it did to insert "scroll wheels into mice." We'll let the peculiar analogy slide if this thing hits the market for a competitive price, deal?[Thanks, Kerunt]
The Godfather: Blackhand Edition (or, a field day for Jack Thompson)
We're not particular fans of EA, generally lackluster licensed games, or the mafia. Still, seeing this trailer excites us a little, if for nothing else than to beat the crap out of everything that moves. The gesture-based control system includes such perks at beer bottle throwing, choking, slapping, and throwing people into walls. Yep, our buddy J.T. is gonna have a grand ol' time with this one, and to be honest, we're a little worried. If hyper-paranoid parents get a look at this stuff, Nintendo could land in some hot soup. For now, though, simply kick back and enjoy the abject violence.
QinetiQ develops mouse-less mousepad
U.K. defense and security firm QinetiQ -- you may remember them from such fun-filled gadgets as exploding ink and the Millimeter Wave see-it-all-o-vision -- have turned their attention to slightly more mundane endeavors, developing what is effectively a mouse-less mousepad. Dubbed for patenting purposes the "non contact human-computer interface," the system consists of an array of infrared emitters and sensors that work in conjunction to detect the position of a hand moving above them (as artfully illustrated above). While it can be used to control simple cursor movement, the device one-ups the venerable mouse in at least one area, boasting the ability to recognize various gestures to perform more complex tasks -- for instance, moving your hand in a circle to shut down your computer, or flashing a gang sign to open up your favorite website (we're hoping). While there's no word when it might actually be available, QinetiQ says it should be fairly inexpensive, as it relies on the same infrared diodes commonly used in television remotes, and we all know there's no shortages of those.[Via New Scientist Tech]
Blue Eye rocks a scanner with a gesture-based interface
Sure, it's by no means the first gesture-based interface that we've seen, but the combination of a scanner with a Minority Report-esque setup comprise this invention, which its Dutch inventors are calling the "Blue Eye." From what we can tell based on the Eindhoven University of Technology's video, Blue Eye is a glass table and a camera mounted overhead all rolled into a slick touch-based UI. Once an object is placed on the table and you push a button, the camera takes a quick snapshot of that object, cropping out the background. Further, you can take pictures of an object in various orientations to create a simple animation right on the table -- ok, so it's not that crazy powerful even compared to the PS3 demo at E3, but go watch that hypnotic video of theirs already and groove to the hip background music.[Via NewScientist]
Your fingers to be the next-gen computer interface
The University of Buffalo's mad scientists are hoping that the "Fingertip Digitizer" will kick off the next phase in computer interfaces by harnessing people's learned physical motions and movement to kill the UI learning curve. All one needs to do is simply slip the sleeve onto their fingers and the device's thin-film embedded force sensors and tri-axial accelerometer will track their movements in real-time, even providing tactile feedback corresponding to physical motions and virtual environments. One might reminisce of a Tom Cruise flick or other implementations of gesture interface control, but the "Fingertip Digitizer" works a bit different then most by allowing the user to not only to command the system with motion, but also feel it (perhaps most similarly to Novint's Falcon). For example, if you move your hand to pick up a ball, you will not only instruct the computer to grab the ball, but feel the pressure and weight of the ball in your hand; should you motion pulling the trigger on a sniper rifle in an FPS, you'll feel that 1.5-pound hair-trigger move ever so slightly with your index finger. The whole system is going to be on display at this year's SIGGRAPH if you're nearby and want to peep one vision of future haptic interfaces, but otherwise you'll have to wait until this system hits commercial applications within about three years to get your mitts on these mitts.
XBLV Camera on sale September 19
Major Nelson has some tentative dates for the release of the Xbox Live Vision Camera (still no price point):North America: September 19thEurope and Asia (except Japan): October 2Japan, Australia and New Zealand: I don't have confirmed dates yet.Admittedly, I still have BBQ sauce on the brain (hence the late post), but the "Vision" moniker is news to me. My first experience with this camera, playing the weirdly suggestive Totem Balls at E3, was a poor one. I'm more excited about video chat and user-created gamer pictures than gesture-based games requiring stadium lighting. Here's video of the camera in use during an exciting game of Uno.How many people will be picking this peripheral up on day one? That is, besides the pedophiles and morons dying to show their ass on XBL.
HP provides deets on gesture keyboard
HP just let loose with some more info on that gesture keyboard the company showed off in India a couple of weeks ago. According to HP, the keypad, which was developed by the company's Bangalore-based research team, can reproduce the script used in Hindi and other Indic languages, a process that would require up to 1,000 keys using a traditional keyboard (though most keyboards designed for such languages rely on keystroke combinations, rather than actual 1,000-key layouts). HP has begun selling the keypad in India for about $45, including software. The device is being manufactured in India by a company HP declined to name. HP sees the potential market for the keyboard as comprising up to 1.5 billion non-English speakers in India, Nepal and other South Asian countries. At $45 a pop, that could make the keyboard a pretty lucrative product for HP.
