Wave to surf: Control TV just by snapping fingers

Washington: Touchscreens are so yesterday. Remote controls? So last century.
The future is controlling your devices with a simple wave of the hand.
A wiggle of the fingers will change television channels or turn the volume up or down. In videogames, your movements will control your onscreen digital avatar.
It’s called 3D gesture recognition and while it may not be in stores this Christmas a number of technology companies are promising that it will be by next year.
Softkinetic, a Brussels-based software company, is one of the leaders in the gesture-control field and has teamed up with US semiconductor giant Texas Instruments and others to make this touchless vision of the future a reality.
Besides TI, Softkinetic has forged partnerships with France’s Orange Vallee for interactive TV, another Belgian firm, Optrima, a maker of 3D cameras and sensors, and with Connecting Technology, a French home automation company.
“On the consumer side you have three markets — television, videogames and personal computers,” Softkinetic chief executive Michel Tombroff said. “The objective is to be on the consumer market at the end of next year, by Christmas, so people can buy these things,” he said.
Tombroff said Softkinetic’s gesture recognition solutions involve using a 3D camera that “looks like a little webcam” and is mounted on top of a television set or computer monitor.
Tombroff said the technology has the capability of transforming television. “It will become an active component of the living room,” he said. “It’s not just about sitting in the living room, turning it on and watching.” AFP

Copyrights TimesofIndia Newspaper 24-12-2009