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Data Glove That Turns Gestures Into Commands
ravidew writes: "Three students at Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, University of California, have built a motion-sensing glove that can transmit hand gestures to a PC. Within 3 years they hope to build sensors that are no bigger than 1mm and can be glued to each fingernail. Now you can really tell Windows what you think ..." While you're at the Sensor and Actuator Center, check out Kris Pister's smart dust.
Attacking human-comp interfacing on all fronts is surely good, but optical and voice control are higher on the evolutionary scale than ever-more sophisticated manual data entry devices. Pyramidal keyboards, data gloves, et al are all variations on an inferior theme. Keyboards, mice, trackballs, joystics, are incredibly inefficient compared to how fast our minds and our computers can process data. That's the real bottleneck right now, not the bus or platter rotation. This glove is just a new and improved way to get carpal tunnel.
There are already experiements with direct patching into the brain, and just think of the virus possibilities of running Outlook on that platform.
Think about it. You have these sensors in each of your fingertips and any flat surface becomes an instant full-size keyboard.
It also one-ups the mouse-keyboard combination, no more mouse/touchpad. Just lift your forefinger off the virtual keyboard and move the mouse pointer by pointing at the screen. Your fingers never have to leave the home-row.
For those that can't touch-type, unroll a cheat-sheet and type on it.
This will be a GREAT technology once it matures.
It could be useful for a mobile input device for PDAs and Laptops. I mean voice recon is fine, problem is you still have to talk out loud. If you're on a plane with a laptop and start shouting computer commands, your gonna get thrown off, maybe while it's still flying!
"Get them before they get....
From todays earlier piece on Thermoelectrics.. So eventually you have the fake fingernails that never need replacing and can control your T.V.. I just know what gesture I'd program for Jerry Springer.
Besides, typing using sign language would also mean that millions of people would then have to learn sign language first before they could type. Whereas with speech recognition, there would be no time wasted in retraining people (i.e. employees).
English has so much fluff that is unnescessary when communicating with a machine - "Hello Computer, please open my email client and show me new emails for today" might be fun the first time, but doing it every day would rapidly grow tiresome.
I agree. English as a language is too ambiguous for computer use. And the way Americans (like myself) speak it makes it even worse as American English is fraught with homonyms.
I know it will never be tried, but classical Latin would be far better for computer input, as it is the least ambiguous language I am aware of.
Back on the subject of gesture input though, I think the Chinese will be able to put this technology to practical use sooner than anyone else. I count at least half a dozen fully-mature products from Hong Kong and Taiwan (I use Power Pen) that use a wacom pad to enter Chinese and English (and Japanese) language text into Windows PC's. With Power Pen, you can use the stylus as the only interface to the PC.
The neat thing about Chinese is, if you draw the characters with the proper stroke order, you can enter entire sentences on the fly without lifting your pen.
So if the glove mentioned could be rigged to run Power Pen, or something like it, so one could just write characters on the desk with their fingers, a Chinese person could use it as the only interface to their PC pretty much immediately.
"Reactionaries must be deprived of the right to voice their opinions; only the people have that right." - Mao