[oregon-l] Fw: [leadership] FW: [VICUG-L] [Disabilities Network of NYC] NYT GivingElectronic Commands With Body Language

[John A. Fleming]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Altschul" <paltschul at centurytel.net>
To: "'Acblead'" <leadership at acb.org>
Cc: <ati at moblind.org>
Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 6:03 PM
Subject: [leadership] FW: [VICUG-L] [Disabilities Network of NYC] NYT 
GivingElectronic Commands With Body Language


>
>
> 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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