Gesture-Based Remote Control

We love our mice, really we
do. Sometimes, however,
such as when we're sitting
on the couch watching a DVD
on a laptop, or when we're
working across the room
from an MP3-playing PC, it
just isn't convenient to drag
a hockey puck and click on
what we want. Attempts to
replace the venerable
mouse--whether with voice
recognition or brain-wave
scanners--have invariably
failed. But an alternative is emerging.
What is it? Compared with the intricacies of voice
recognition, gesture recognition is a fairly simple idea
that is only now making its way into consumer
electronics. The idea is to employ a camera (such as a
laptop's Webcam) to watch the user and react to the
person's hand signals. Holding your palm out flat
would indicate "stop," for example, if you're playing a
movie or a song. And waving a fist around in the air
could double as a pointing system: You would just
move your fist to the right to move the pointer right,
and so on.
When is it coming? Gesture recognition systems are
creeping onto the market now. Toshiba, a pioneer in
this market, has at least one product out that supports
an early version of the technology: the Qosmio G55
laptop, which can recognize gestures to control
multimedia playback. The company is also
experimenting with a TV version of the technology,
which would watch for hand signals via a small camera
atop the set. Based on my tests, though, the accuracy
of these systems still needs a lot of work.
Gesture recognition is a neat way to pause the DVD on
your laptop, but it probably remains a way off from
being sophisticated enough for broad adoption. All the
same, its successful development would excite tons of
interest from the "can't find the remote" crowd. Expect
to see gesture recognition technology make some great
strides over the next few years, with inroads into
mainstream markets by 2012.