Microsoft's Hand-Gesture Sensor Bracelet 86
another random user tips this quote from the BBC:
"A wrist-worn sensor that creates 3D-models of the user's hand movements in real-time has been built by Microsoft. The Digits prototype is part of an effort to create a mobile device that would allow its owner to control a range of equipment using hand gestures. The firm said it could be used as a virtual TV control, a way to operate a smartphone while it is in the user's pocket, and to play video games. It is designed to be less cumbersome and uncomfortable than sensor gloves. However, some experts question whether consumers would want to wear such a device during their day-to-day activities."
ACM has the research paper (PDF) describing this device and its use.
Some Experts Suck. (Score:5, Interesting)
However, some experts question whether consumers would want to wear such a device during their day-to-day activities.
If you showed those same "experts" the bulky brick style cell phones lots of people carried in the mid-90's, they'd probably also question whether anyone would bother to lug such a thing around, while doing their day-to-day activities. Especially since all they did was take phone calls. But hey, if you can't make something cool, piss on what somebody else is doing, right?
Re:even their best promo art shows it doesn't work (Score:4, Interesting)
Take a close look at the 2 images. The CGI doesn't match the finger position.
And it doesn't have to, either. It's actually probably better that it doesn't: you want the matches to be close enough to the correct gesture, rather than the exact gesture itself, as exact matching would create endless frustration for the user. Rough matching, OTOH, if done decently well, is vastly easier to use. That's why speech recognition is so hard for computers: because humans don't pronounce the same word the exact same way every time (well, that and some words sound identical).
You know it's gotten bad when... (Score:4, Interesting)
even the "experts" apparently aren't reading TFA.
He added that the prototype had been built using existing off-the-shelf components, but there was scope to improve the equipment with customised parts.
"Ultimately we would like to reduce Digits to the size of a watch that can be worn all the time," he said.
Lots of people wear watches all the time - so when they can get it down to watch size (not if, when, given the way miniaturization of computers, cameras, etc. has progressed), I don't see any reason to suppose that people would find wearing a gesture sensor to be a burden.
And, for that matter, since the actual workings of a digital watch are tiny now, the gesture sensor could also be a watch.