gesture control

Gesture controls grow up

There's a school of thought that says consumers have been secretly trained in the ways of gesture control for years, starting with laptop touch pads, then smartphone screens, and even the motion-controlled Nintendo Wii. Gesture controls, whether hands-on, via a screen or input pad, or hands-off, via camera control, are now everywhere, including televisions, game consoles, and PCs.

Hands-on gesture control has moved far beyond iOS and Android devices, with an entire new operating system, Windows 8, practically built around multifinger swiping, either on a touch screen, or via one of the increasing number of oversize touch pads these … Read more

Bringing 'Minority Report' touchless gestures to Windows 8

Elliptic Labs wants to bring the touchless gesture controls seen in the science-fiction film "Minority Report" to everyday consumer electronic devices, starting with Windows 8.

The company -- a Norwegian university spinout with offices in Oslo and Silicon Valley -- unveiled a set of tools to help consumer electronic companies enable touchless controls in their products. These would be similar to the kind of gesture controls seen with the Xbox 360 Kinect and in certain smart televisions like a few models from Samsung Electronics, but presumably would work more smoothly.

That's because the Elliptic device won't … Read more

Leap Motion: Gesture tech's come-hither allure

Developers eager to be among the first to create applications for Leap Motion's new gesture control system think it could be used to auto-translate sign language.

That was among the details the company released this morning about the initial round of requests from developers to design tools that work with the Leap -- technology that lets users control what's on their computers with hundredth of a millimeter accuracy with nothing more than their fingers or their hands.

The San Francisco company said that in the two months since pulling back the wraps on the Leap, more than 26,… Read more

Gesture control coming to Windows 8 computers

Wave at your new computer. Technology from PointGrab might soon be there to watch you. The Israeli company, which builds gesture-recognition technology, says it's in talks with many vendors bringing out Windows 8 laptops this year.

Currently, PointGrab technology is deeply embedded in a few TV sets from one manufacturer. PointGrab executives begged me not to name the vendor, but there's only one company shipping gesture-controlled TVs so it's not hard to figure it out.

In the living room environment, the technology makes a lot of sense. Instead of having to poke at buttons to control your … Read more

Kinect in the car? It's coming

Microsoft placed a want ad for a software engineer with its Connected Car QA team to aid in the development and testing of the next-generation connected car platform. Based on the job description on Microsoft's Web site, it looks like the technology giant has embedded every product it offers in the dash:

For the next generation of the Connected Car Platform, we plan to leverage the full power of the Microsoft ecosystem including Kinect, Windows 8, Windows Phone, Windows Live, Bing, Azure, and Tellme. The combination of rich local sensing, user identification, cloud access, and data mining will transform … Read more

Samsung Smart Interaction: Hands-on with voice and gesture control

At CES this year one of the most interesting announcements involved Samsung's Smart Interaction, a new feature on its 2012 TVs that utilizes a built-in camera and microphone to enable you to control the boob tube just by speaking and/or gesturing to it. I've spent the last few days doing just that, much to the amusement of my co-workers, and boy are my arms (and at least one finger) tired.

My takeaway? Smart Interaction has promise but feels half-baked and more like a gimmick than a compelling upgrade. Once the novelty wears off, its usefulness is limited (at best) to those times you don't have a remote in-hand. … Read more

Gesture control won't wave TV remotes goodbye yet

There were a few new buzzwords floating around at this year's CES, and among "OLED" and "4K resolution" came another: "gesture control."

What is it? Why, it's the new touch, according to its inventor, PrimeSense. But instead of touching the screen you wave at it.

But the technology isn't brand new; if you've seen an Xbox Kinect you've seen gesture control--particularly if you've played with the newest update.

Microsoft licensed PrimeSense's 3D sensor technology for use in the Kinect, and PrimeSense says it wants to see gesture control in all consumer electronics, and not just TVs. But the thing I don't understand is why I would want to wave at my telephone rather than touch it. Asus and Microsoft are experimenting with using gestures in their products, but as CNET editor Scott Stein says: why? … Read more

Kinect coming to laptops? Why?

Hey, look at this: Kinect on a laptop. OK, so there we go. According to The Daily, companies are well on their way to making laptops--or, at least, laptop prototypes--running Windows 8 and equipped with Kinect motion camera hardware instead of standard webcams.

The Daily got to see some of this technology first hand on what it thinks were Asus laptops. Intel's CES 2012 press conference featured a stage re-enactment of a similar Kinect-like idea on a laptop, shooting a virtual catapult in a game.

The real question here is, who's going to use this?… Read more

Acer Aspire Z5763 has gesture control, bad name

A year ago, we thought controlling a computer by prodding a meat stylus at its touch screen was the height of next-gen sophistication. Acer may just have reset our expectations, however, with the Aspire Z5763--an all-in-one computer you control by flailing your arms about.

This ridiculously named device has a 2-megapixel Webcam which, according to Engadget, can monitor users' movements using a gesture-recognition system Acer has dubbed ZQ3318P10. Just kidding, it's seen sense and called it something people will actually remember--Acer AirControl.

AirControl can detect the movements of your hand or fingers and can translate those into commands.

"Just wave your hand in front of the desktop and the media control interface is launched," Acer says. You can then move your hand over various icons to adjust volume, rewind, fast forward, play, pause or stop media.

No word on whether or when this device will be coming to the U.S.

Read more of "Acer Aspire Z5763 has gesture-controlled 3D display, forgettable name" at Crave UK. … Read more