Google Wins US Approval For Radar-Based Hand Motion Sensor (reuters.com)

Alphabet's Google unit has won the approval from U.S. regulators to deploy a radar-based motion sensing device known as Project Soli. From a report: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said in an order late on Monday that it would grant Google a waiver to operate the Soli sensors at higher power levels than currently allowed. The FCC said the sensors can also be operated aboard aircraft. The FCC said the decision "will serve the public interest by providing for innovative device control features using touchless hand gesture technology." The FCC said the Soli sensor captures motion in a three-dimensional space using a radar beam to enable touchless control of functions or features that can benefit users with mobility or speech impairments.

Comments

Wow

[fred911]

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

IDK, but radar motion sensing is now commonly available in light bulbs and you can buy the sensors for less than a dollar a piece, so we'll find out soon.

Re: Wow

[tysonedwards]

There is a huge difference in power levels required to detect gross movement (like waving an arm) and fine movement (like making a box with your index fingers and thumbs).

Re:Wow

[Mikkeles]

C'mon, this is just a radar controlled theremin; which has thousands of hour of safe use! Capacitance - radar; what's the difference!

Re: Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

No you shut up! In other words (previous poster) the article is true for more than one reason which is why it works perfectly in all situations and this is not even a little bit sad

Waiver

[Anonymous Coward]

So they just waved it through? That seems a bit handwavy.

First!

[dohzer]

When do we think Apple will claim to have done this first?
Based on previous behaviour, I give it a couple of years.

Re: First!

[tysonedwards]

Round about the time they talk to either their Fingerworks or Primesense acquired staff, I would imagine.

Re:No thanks

[50000BTU_barbecue]

Cooked? It takes a microwave oven with 1500 watts of power about one minute to boil a cup of water. Assuming you weigh 150 pounds, how long would it take a million times less power to cook you?

FAA says no!

[Joe_Dragon]

FAA says no!

Captive Agency

[datavirtue]

"will serve the public interest by providing for innovative device control features using touchless hand gesture technology"

Sounds like one of those statements that I would write and my manager would send out in an email to the executive board with his name on it. Is it that our society is in free-fall or that life has always been like this and we are constantly faced with it due to the speed at which information now travels?

Re:Captive Agency

[ediron2]

nothing so nefarious. 'will serve the public interest' is a necessary condition for RF transceivers asking to use airwaves, which are (cough cough) managed in the public interest. Bumping up the radar transmit strength beyond usual legal thresholds means they need to get FCC (and maybe FAA or other) approval, and that puts them into writing a multiprong request: 'it's only a little bit more power needed, serves the public interest via ____, and doesn't impair existing uses like keeping jets from colliding.'

Google Wins!!

[datavirtue]

Google wins, you lose. Faintly opaque commentary and missing details at 6 and 11.

The FCC is shutdown; unless you're Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

The FCC is shutdown; unless you're Google.

Re: No thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

Or the room was built around them and they never used the door.

Re:No thanks

[mark-t]

I'm pretty sure at million times less power than what you use to boil water in a microwave, you aren't adding energy faster than you could ordinarily radiate it away, so.... never.

How does never strike you?

[SuperKendall]

Hand waving gestures have always struck me as a dubious control mechanism - way to prone to false input as people move hands naturally. Nothing like going to blow your nose and deleting all your files.

On a side note..

The FCC said the sensors can also be operated aboard aircraft.

OMG no.

Re:How does never strike you?

[Gavagai80]

You like having to touch the same screen as a bunch of sick people on a plane?

Still never

[SuperKendall]

You like having to touch the same screen as a bunch of sick people on a plane

A) I wipe down arm-rests and tray with a Clorox wipe when traveling. You don't??????? I mean, since you seem to care about touching surfaces sick people have touched, and you are sitting there for hours stewing in other people's filth...

B) Why are sick people touching my iPad?

C) Everyone would universally loathe hand gesture controls of airplane screens which is absolutely worst case for accidental triggering. Even if the extra expense to install something like that per seat were to go forward, it would be disabled within a month and never used again. Airplane LCD screens already have the cursed behavior of coming on often when you just want the damn things off, hand-waving activation makes that issues 1000x worse.

A new level of horror

[SuperKendall]

You like having to touch the same screen

Sorry, just had to follow up with one more thought on this...

D) I just thought through the scenario of hand control for LCD's in front of your seat. That means the people NEXT TO YOU are constantly waving hands around instead of being still like they are supposed to.

Seriously can you think of a bigger nightmare in a situation where everyone around you is annoying already? Can you imagine how many more drinks would be spilled from trays just trying to adjust volume or turn screens off/on or change channels? Nothing like someone next to me sweeping a cup of coffee into my lap...

NO THANK YOU SIR I WILL HAVE NONE OF IT.

I'm bathed in radiation already

[goombah99]

It's sad that I already have to soak in WiFi. It's too useful not to use but it's unlikely to actually be good for you. Hopefully it's benign. It's been show that oscilating electrical fields do have unexpected coupling to humans and animals. FOr example, one can drive DNA resonances that lead to unwinding of DNA or bubbles of unpairing that can move through DNA. It's not the fields (which have wavelengths far beyond the molecule size) but some other coupling phenomena. THat can't be good though we can't exactly say if it's showing up in any way.

Now there's another involuntary radiation source bathing me in the office, elevators, cars, planes, and trains.

Microwave ovens were derived from radar band transmitters and we know those can excite the rotations of small molecules. Local heating, protein denaturation. Pulsed impulses are being studied now for opening blood brain barriers (as a therapy to introduce drugs into the brain, but hey why not viruses as passengers too). then of course at there's the weird effects in the cuban embassy.

I'd ust prefer to have my radiation doses voluntary so I can decide if I like WiFi or not.

What a wonnnderful idea (NOT)

[whitroth]

Old reason why voice computing will never come in: the just fired employee is being escorted out of HR, and yells, at the top of their voice, "start!command!runasadministrator!format c-colon-slash!enter"

Now, with radar, gosh, you kids are too young to remember how pranksters used to hold up a couple fingers in a V behind your head when your pics were getting taken. Now, someone on the plane, in the seat behind you, can motion for your phone to download an app to steal everything you have.

Just because you can does NOT mean you should.

Re:What a wonnnderful idea (NOT)

[Fwipp]

Yes of course, because there will be a gesture for "download malware please."

Like, you're trying to make a joke, right?

Re:Use the force

[whitroth]

Actually, I prefer Ellie Dee to Cherry.

Re:No thanks

[usu4rio]

It won't. They're non ionizing radiation

Here's a gesture for ya Google

[mnemotronic]

<#insert middlefinger.asciiart.txt>

What coulda possibly go wrong?

[Provocateur]

On an Italian submarine? Everythinga!

So the old power limits were too conservative?

[misnohmer]

The transmit power thresholds were chosen for some reason, no? Or did the FCC just pick the power levels out of a hat before? If they had valid reasons, how did those reasons change to make the higher thresholds ok today but not in the past?

Re:So the old power limits were too conservative?

[Areyoukiddingme]

The transmit power thresholds were chosen for some reason, no? Or did the FCC just pick the power levels out of a hat before?

The thresholds were picked out of a hat. The need was "we want to assure a noise floor for this frequency." The choice of exactly what that floor should be was fairly arbitrary. It was also somewhat restricted by the signal processing technology of the time. That's the part that is changing, making one number out of a hat less necessary than a slightly bigger number out of a hat. With good signal processing, a higher noise floor can be tolerated.

There's also been advances in transmitter technology. No transmitter is perfect. There are always harmonics in any transmitted signal. But the more efficient a transmitter is, the better it is at putting energy into the primary frequency, wasting less in harmonic frequencies. With nicely efficient transmitters, more of your signal shows up in the frequency you are nominally using, so there's less noise in other frequencies. Again, limiting the noise floor.

Re:So the old power limits were too conservative?

[misnohmer]

I agree with technology getting better and receivers being able to filter out the noise better, but as for transmitters, isn't the noise transmitted on harmonic frequencies regulated separately? If I have a 900MHz transmitter and my power limit is 100mW, are you saying I can transmit on any harmonic frequency I want as long as my total emissions are 100mW (so maybe 95mW on 2.7GHz and 5mW on all others including my main 900MHz carrier), or is it that I can transmit 100mW on 900MHz and some other power limit for all other frequencies?

Re:So the old power limits were too conservative?

[Areyoukiddingme]

If I have a 900MHz transmitter and my power limit is 100mW, are you saying I can transmit on any harmonic frequency I want as long as my total emissions are 100mW (so maybe 95mW on 2.7GHz and 5mW on all others including my main 900MHz carrier), or is it that I can transmit 100mW on 900MHz and some other power limit for all other frequencies?

Your total emissions are limited to 100 mW. The FCC measures power being sent to the antenna, since that's by far the most convenient place to measure. This is why antenna efficiency is desirable. (Quite aside from making it easier for receivers to successfully extract your signal.)

Re:No thanks

[Agripa]

Cooked? It takes a microwave oven with 1500 watts of power about one minute to boil a cup of water. Assuming you weigh 150 pounds, how long would it take a million times less power to cook you?

It will not be a problem here but with the right near field impedance matching, you can get a serious RF burn in less than a second with less than 5 watts if it is concentrated in a small volume. People who have messed with helical resonators and RF excited gas lasers have to be careful about this which I know first hand, well, finger.