Hello,

This new technology sounds extremely cool. It also sounds like it will 
be significantly easier to be made accessible than the touchscreen, and 
Apple has done a fabulous job with making the touchscreen accessible 
with Voice Over on the iPhones which have enough power to run it.

David Chittenden, MSc, CRC, MRCAA
Email: [log in to unmask]



Rachel wrote:
> This sounds like it might mean trouble for blind people.
> Rachel
> Giving Electronic Commands With Body Language
> By ASHLEE VANCE NYT January 12, 2010
>
> LAS VEGAS — The technology industry is going retro — moving away from 
> remote controls, mice and joysticks to something that arrives without 
> batteries, wires or a user manual.
>
> It's called a hand.
>
> In the coming months, the likes of Microsoft, Hitachi and major PC 
> makers will begin selling devices that will allow people to flip 
> channels on the TV or move documents on a computer monitor with simple 
> hand gestures. The technology, one of the most significant changes to 
> human-device interfaces since the mouse appeared next to computers in 
> the early 1980s, was being shown in private sessions during the 
> immense Consumer Electronics Show here last week. Past attempts at 
> similar technology have proved clunky and disappointing. In contrast, 
> the latest crop of gesture-powered devices arrives with a refreshing 
> surprise: they actually work.
>
> "Everything is finally moving in the right direction," said Vincent 
> John Vincent, the co-founder of GestureTek, a company that makes 
> software for gesture devices.
>
> Manipulating the screen with the flick of the wrist will remind many 
> people of the 2002 film "Minority Report" in which Tom Cruise moves 
> images and documents around on futuristic computer screens with a few 
> sweeping gestures. The real-life technology will call for similar 
> flair and some subtlety. Stand in front of a TV armed with a gesture 
> technology camera, and you can turn on the set with a soft punch into 
> the air. Flipping through channels requires a twist of the hand, and 
> raising the volume occurs with an upward pat. If there is a photo on 
> the screen, you can enlarge it by holding your hands in the air and 
> spreading them apart and shrink it by bringing your hands back 
> together as you would do with your fingers on a cellphone touch screen.
>
> The gesture revolution will go mainstream later this year when 
> Microsoft releases a new video game system known at this time as 
> Project Natal. The gaming system is Microsoft's attempt to one-up 
> Nintendo's Wii.
>
> Where the Wii requires hypersensitive hand-held controllers to 
> translate body motions into on-screen action, Microsoft's Natal will 
> require nothing more than the human body. Microsoft has demonstrated 
> games like dodge ball where people can jump, hurl balls at opponents 
> and dart out of the way of incoming balls using natural motions. Other 
> games have people contorting to fit through different shapes and 
> performing skateboard tricks.
>
> Just as Microsoft's gaming system hits the market, so should TVs from 
> Hitachi in Japan that will let people turn on their screens, scan 
> through channels and change the volume on their sets with simple hand 
> motions. Laptops and other computers should also arrive later this 
> year with built-in cameras that can pick up similar gestures. Such 
> technology could make today's touch-screen tools obsolete as people 
> use gestures to control, for instance, the playback or fast-forward of 
> a DVD.
>
> To bring these gesture functions to life, device makers needed to 
> conquer what amounts to one of computer science's grand challenges. 
> Electronics had to see the world around them in fine detail through 
> tiny digital cameras. Such a task meant giving a TV, for example, a 
> way to identify people sitting on a couch and to recognize a certain 
> hand wave as a command and not a scratching of the nose.
>
> Little things like the sun, room lights and people's annoying habit of 
> doing the unexpected stood as just some of the obstacles companies had 
> to overcome.
>
> GestureTek, with offices in Silicon Valley and Ottawa, has spent a 
> quarter-century trying to perfect its technology and has enjoyed some 
> success. It helps TV weather people, museums and hotels create huge 
> interactive displays.
>
> This past work, however, has relied on limited, standard cameras that 
> perceive the world in two dimensions. The major breakthrough with the 
> latest gesture technology comes through the use of cameras that see 
> the world in three dimensions, adding that crucial layer of depth 
> perception that helps a computer or TV recognize when someone tilts 
> their hand forward or nods their head.
>
> Canesta, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., has spent 11 years developing 
> chips to power these types of 3-D cameras. In the early days, its 
> products were much larger than an entire desktop computer. Today, the 
> chip takes up less space than a fingernail. "We always had this grand 
> vision of being able to control electronics devices from a distance," 
> said Cyrus Bamji, the chief technology officer at Canesta. Competition 
> in the gesture field has turned fierce as a result of the sudden 
> interest in the technology. In particular, Canesta and PrimeSense, a 
> Tel Aviv start-up, have fought to supply the 3-D chips in Microsoft's 
> Natal gaming system.
>
> At last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, executives and 
> engineers from Canesta and GestureTek were encamped in suites at the 
> Hilton near the main conference show floor as they shuttled executives 
> from Asian electronics makers in and out of their rooms for secretive 
> meetings.
>
> Similarly, PrimeSense held invitation-only sessions at its tiny, 
> walled-off booth and forbade any photos or videos of its products.
>
> In one demonstration, a camera using the PrimeSense chip could 
> distinguish among multiple people sitting on a couch and even tell the 
> difference between a person's jacket, shirt and under-shirt. And with 
> such technology it's impossible, try as you might, to lose your remote 
> control.
>
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