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Microsoft Creates Kinect-Like System Using Laptop Speaker & Microphone
MrSeb writes "Microsoft Research, working with the University of Washington, has developed a Kinect-like system that uses your computer's built-in microphone and speakers to provide object detection and gesture recognition, much in the same way that a submarine uses sonar. Called SoundWave, the new technology uses the Doppler effect to detect any movements and gestures in the proximity of a computer. In the case of SoundWave, your computer's built-in speaker is used to emit ultrasonic (18-22KHz) sound waves, which change frequency depending on where your hand (or body) is in relation to the computer. This change in frequency is measured by your computer's built-in microphone, and then some fairly complex software works out your motion/gesture. The obvious advantage of SoundWave over a product like Kinect is that it uses existing, commodity hardware; it could effectively equip every modern laptop with a gesture-sensing interface. The Microsoft Research team is reporting a 90-100% accuracy rate for SoundWave, even in noisy environments."
It sounds interesting, as long as there is no background noise, you are alone in the room with the system and the system itself isn't generating any noises (fans? DVD access? music or sound effects?).
Sean Connery, FTW.
How is this Ultrasonic? Humans can hear up to 20KHz. So only the upper end of this is going to be above human hearing. Neat idea but I don't think I could tolerate the high pitch whine all day. Sounds like MS needs to hire some younger blood.
Sorry, it appears that you have pirated these sound waves. Please purchase the correct sound waves from our store.
In my youth I could hear 18kHz. So is this only for older / deaf users?
I don't have one, but I thought the kinect did 2D very accurately plus a crude 3rd D based on image size so lets call it 2.5 D
I don't see how one mic and two speakers does more than 1 D of data. Then again I haven't read the article, maybe they place the whole laptop on an oscillating fan or something as a gimmick. Or is it really using the built in cam and the ultrasound is the gimmick that doesn't really do anything?
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
For reasons I cannot understand this one particular website is blocked at my work.
Anyone mind doing a quick copy+paste for me?
It's gonna piss off a lot of people's dogs!
Can they patent it? This seems to be pretty much what bats have been doing for centuries
Not for pet owners, it seems.
There was some research back in the past, this is a much more precise version, it seems (and btw, why aren't they using also the built-in camera, which is very common in today's laptops?)
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/10/15/2121214/sonar-software-detects-laptop-user-presence
http://empathicsystems.org/
I wonder how accurate it is if two people are using it at the same time in the same area, e.g. me and my next-seat neighbor on an airliner...
Is it a good thing or a bad thing that the first thought I had was of the cell phone sonar from The Dark Knight film?
I'm in the beginning of my 30s and I can still hear 18 kHz (probably due to not listening to loud music, and wearing musicians' ear plugs in loud clubs); younger folks can often hear to around 20 kHz. Calling this ultrasonic is silly. Though the high frequency sensitivity of the ear is lower and these sounds would not be loud, they can easily be annoying, in the same way the old CRT TVs had that annoying 15.7 kHz buzz you can hear when you mute the sound.
Some here may wonder why, in the day of sound cards with 96 ksamples/s they didn't use a higher output frequency. The problem is the sound card DAC's reconstruction filter starts attenuation significantly below that, and most speakers drop in sensitivity much beyond 20 kHz as well. I would imagine the recording side has similar limitations.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Many people did such thing for fun years ago. I guess they got slightly worse effects than '90-100%', but it was already done like 10 years ago.
Microsoft invented nothing then.
But I guess they will claim a patent, won't they?
So, we got a Kinect, and the biggest downside we noticed is the sheer amount of space it requires to function properly.
I do not have a small house, but it's a bit tight in our living room. I can't imagine how badly it works in a typical dorm room.
Does this sound-based mechanism work better with smaller spaces? Has it been tested in dorm rooms and cube farms?
Why is everybody trying to make me wave my hands in the air or lift my forearms off the desk to drag my fingers across a screen?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Further proof that Microsoft has the best code-names and the worst product names.
Not sure whom, but I've heard someone did something like this (>5?) years ago.
Now if only it could transform your PC into a giant robot interested only in the consumption of all energy in the universe.
summary, then article: "the frequency changes when the distance changes". wrong.
the frequency changes when the velocity of the hand/head/whatever changes.
the article even goes further to describe the train approaching vs train leaving example of Doppler effect, and still the author didn't understand that it's not the distance that matters.
PS: 18kHz-22kHz is much too low.
Kinect detects the position of objects, while this system can only detect movement.
All you need to do is combine specific gestures with spoken keywords, and you've got yourself a magically controlled laptop. Required equipment for Hogwarts comp-sci 101 course. If this had come a few years earlier, they could have used it for spell casting in the the Harry Potter PC games.
This could be pretty cool for when you have your hands dirty and don't need your keyboard to be too. Scrolling recipes, for example.
PS. Que the porn jokes...
.: Max Romantschuk
The Kinect itself is becoming "existing, commodity hardware"...
Can I have my tinfoil hat?
Doc: No, it wont help.
For every benefit you receive a tax is levied. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
much in the same way that a bat uses echolocation.
The bats didn't patent it, but you acknowledge their work.
Why is everybody trying to make me wave my hands in the air or lift my forearms off the desk to drag my fingers across a screen?
Because that's what the actors do in the all of the futuristic movies.
I agree that there's little point on using this for everyday computer usage, it would be really cool for standing in front of classrooms giving presentations, and some other not-so-everyday-usages.
Doesn't take a lot of imagination to see laptops with cheap built in ultrasonic emitters and microphones! Would probably be more reliable...
I saw this demonstrated on Hackaday recently..
Now, let's turn on a room fan, or have the HVAC system start blowing the air around...
I'd like to quote TFS and GP here "The Microsoft Research team is reporting a 90-100% accuracy rate for SoundWave, even in noisy environments."
This will never see the light of day - their aim is to patent/copyright it and
then lock it up. No need to cut into their market.
"SoundWave has detected that you are trying to masturbate. Shall I redirect your browser to a porn site appropriate for your sexual orientation?"
Clippy
The velocity of the object doesn't matter if it doesn't move towards or away from the sonar. Thus, the doppler effect occurs during the time period that the object's distance to the sonar is changing... when that is happening, the sonar receives different frequency than the one it sends out. So I think that saying "the frequency changes when the distance changes" is correct if you interpret "when" to mean "during" and "changes" to mean "is in altered state". It's a bit of a stretch but I could see that happening, even if the author understood the effect.
The Microsoft Research team is reporting a 90-100% accuracy rate for SoundWave, even in noisy environments.
I wonder if they tested the system when multiple of these computers were in the same room.
Innovating is thinking up something new, and then building it. This was thought up by someone else. Kudos to them for getting it working, even 90% seems amazing to me. But it isn't innovation when someone else built it first. Also, the post about about Microsoft patenting this idea even though someone else thought of it first, strikes me as SOP for MS, while being ironic and amusing at the same time.
It will be integrated with Skype Premium. You can use the sonar to see the outline of whoever you are talking with even if they have turned off the camera.
...When they already have Kinect?
This change in frequency is measured by your computer's built-in microphone, and then some fairly complex software works out your motion/gesture.
Complex software my ass. Take a FFT, find the peak in the 18-20kHz range and add it to the list. Check what the pattern in the list was over the last X seconds, see if that pattern matches one of the stored patterns. Initiate gesture action.
This could also be used to see if you are sitting at your laptop... very sneaky.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
That is well within the normal hearing range of a teenage human.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
I think it's kinda funny that almost every single comment on this article so far has been bitching about the frequency and how people can hear it, and not how amazing this is.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flyback_transformer
b.t.w. I can hear that and also mosquito buzz like the ones in shopping malls.
Oh yes, I am heading towards 50 years of age, not all old people have hearing problems.
Nowadays more young than old people have hearing problems...
There is an android app that does (or tries) to do just that.
http://www.appbrain.com/app/sonar/com.dicon.sonar
Sig? Heil
Someone developed this capability about 4 years ago (estimate) with the idea of using it to lock a pc or laptop when the user walks away from it in an open environment. Detecting presence of a user withing "keyboard range" of the device was almost a trivial matter, and detecting motion near the system was very little more complex.
Didn't Morgan Freeman create this circa 2008?
batman did it first, but with cell phones
Now you'll be able to fap, fap, fap away until you beat level 32. And don't try and tell me someone won't try this.
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
Everything old is new again :-) Admittedly, the mechanism is somewhat more advanced going by TFA (the MS version uses doppler shift rather than triangulation per se, so it can use a single mic) :
From TFA:
"In the case of SoundWave, your computerâ(TM)s built-in speaker is used to emit ultrasonic (18-22KHz) sound waves, which change frequency depending on where your hand (or body) is in relation to the computer. This change in frequency is measured by your computerâ(TM)s built-in microphone, and then some fairly complex software works out your motion/gesture."
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_Glove
"There are two ultrasonic speakers (transmitters) in the glove and three ultrasonic microphones (receivers) around the TV monitor. The ultrasonic speakers take turns transmitting a short burst (a few pulses) of 40 kHz sound and the system measures the time it takes for the sound to reach the microphones. A triangulation calculation is performed to determine the X, Y, Z location of each of the two speakers, which specifies the yaw and roll of the hand."
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.