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"Body Talk" Could Control Gadgets

Posted by Hemos on from the talking-with-the-machines dept.

Fragglebabe writes "The BBC reports that we could soon be controlling our gadgets using small movements of the body, such as a nod of the head. In order to make this possible, 'Audio cloud' technology has been developed by researchers at the University of Glasgow. They say that 'audio clouds could make using mobile devices on the move safer and easier'. According to the article, 'the researchers have developed ways to control gadgets, such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and music players, using 3D sound for output and gestures for input.'"

3 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Tension conveys intention by thbb · · Score: 5, Informative
    Back in 1993, with a dataglove (video recognition could not be used at the time), I spent some time assessing the conditions by which one could use this type of interaction. We came up with three recommendations for gesture-based interaction vocabularies:
    • Creation of an active zone to distinguish gestures addressed to the system from other gestures.
    • Recognition of dynamic gestures to ensure smooth command input.
    • Use of hand tension at the start of gestural commands to structure the interaction.

    This last one is key: tense gestures (just as tension in the voice) carry the fact you really want something done, and thus disambiguates your gestures.

    More at: Charade: remote control of objects using free hand gestures
    1. Re:Tension conveys intention by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Some of the guys in out sister group at the Hamilton Institute have been working on doing exactly this -- using tremor as an input mechanism on mobile devices:
      See the paper at
      http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod/publications/StrMur0 4.pdf and the video at http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~rod/Videos/TremorVideo.m ov

      --John (researcher on the audioclouds project)

  2. allready there. by C0d1ngM0nk3y · · Score: 2, Informative


    Fighter pilots have head tracking on HMD (helmet mounted displays) that make it easier for them to target enemy aricraft.

    They're available commercially too (for flight sims, etc), bit pricey though...

    http://www.vrealities.com/logitech.html

    --
    Coding Monkey.org - Spanging the heavy spade of truth into t