#ALGORITHMS: "3-D gesture control breaks out of the game box"

3-D gesture recognition is going mainstream--jumping from the consumer market for gaming to that most iconic user interfaces (UI) like the TV remote, as well as helping to build more intuitive smartphones and touchscreen tablets. Look for 3-D gestures like shake-to-undo to become standard UI fare within two years. R. Colin Johnson @NextGenLog


3-D gestures are going mainstream in 2011, inspired partly by a 2009 Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstration of how a layer of photodiodes to the backside of a liquid-crystal display lets the LCD recognize hand gestures made in front of the screen.

Here is what my EETimes story says about gesture recognition: This could be the year 3-D gesture recognition proves it’s not just child’s play. Several years after its first consumer market appearance in the wireless gaming interface for Nintendo’s Wii, MEMS sensor-based gesture recognition is extending its reach to smartphones and is set to take hold of that most iconic of consumer interfaces: the TV remote. Since the Wii’s 2006 release, Nintendo’s competitors have spun their own versions of 3-D gesture recognition and processing. Sony tuned the Move Playstation controller for hard-core gamers seeking pinpoint accuracy; Microsoft took the gaming interface hands-free with the Xbox Kinect.


Movea's Gesture Builder allows original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to design their own gestures an includes a run-time library for devices that allow users to define their own gestures.

Apple was the first to pick up on microelectromechanical sensors’ potential for building more intuitive smartphone interfaces; it added MEMS accelerometers to the iPhone in 2007 and a MEMS gyroscope in 2010. Its competitors have followed suit, and soon 3-D commands such as shake-to-undo, lift-to-answer and face-down-to-disconnect will be standard smartphone fare...

Full Text: http://bit.ly/NextGenLog-eOnM