Sci Fi Gadgets: Gesture Control Screens

In my last post on sci fi gadgets and I had started by talking about a Tom Cruise movie. Incidentally, today’s blog post on another sci fi gadget that has actually become reality will also start with discussing a Tom Cruise movie – The Minority Report. Those who have seen the movie will remember the cool manner in which the Tom Cruise character interacts with the computers – simply by gesturing.

Gesture control for computers and other screens has now become a reality. Though the extremely slick gesture control interface is still some time away, we are surely reaching there. While the touch-screen is a widely available in a number of devices that we currently use – Smartphones, tablets etc – the gesture control interface has also become a reality – and is indeed adapted for consumer use.

One of the most well known devices that understands and responds to gestures is the Wii gaming console – along with its remote. Many successful motion based games have been released based on this technology. Microsoft developed Xbox also bought out a similar gaming device – the Kinect – which turned out to be quite successful.

While touch screens have almost become par for the course for portable computers, some PC makers have already started experimenting with the gesture control interface too. The recently released E-Series Vaio laptops have a limited gesture control facility. Samsung has also recently released an all in one PC that has gesture control as one of its features.

The gesture control feature is one that will find ready acceptance in the home entertainment segment.  After all, what will appeal to a couch potato more than to be able to control his TV by mere gestures – in case the remote is kept on the table? Samsung has also adopted the gesture control technology for its range of top end Smart TVs. The EA8000R model of Samsung Smart TV, for example, features the gesture control, where pre-defined gesture patterns control certain TV functions.  In the home entertainment category, gesture control has also been adopted in nTobeBox, a Smart TV box.

Another TV that has adopted gesture control is the LG SmartTV range – albeit the method is slightly different from that of Samsung TVs. While Samsung uses hand gestures, LG Smart TV follows the Wii model – and uses a smart device called the Magic Motion Remote. The Magic remote works quite well – and is actually fun to operate once you get used to. You can use it to scroll through the Smart TV dashboard, check out the apps, breeze through the menu functions, and even play the pre-loaded 3D games. I have had great fun while playing Angry Birds on my LG Smart TV – using the Magic Motion Remote!

As I have already stated above, my guess is that this technology will be definitely refined further, and more widely adapted for wider use in home and office. With further improvements in computer vision and image processing technologies, the bugs in the current gesture controlled devices will be hopefully removed, thus leading to wider applications.