"Google" Gesture concept (sign language real time translation)

This does not seems to be an official Google product, but still this is a nice idea, presented well:

Google Gesture from August Östberg on Vimeo.

New design of Thelmic Myo

TechCrunch reports:

Waterloo-based startup Thalmic is getting close to shipping its final consumer version of the Myo gesture control armband, which slips onto the forearm and can detect electrical impulses sent through your arm’s muscle tissue to translate those signals to various types of computerized input via Bluetooth.

Developer version could be pre-ordered for just $149.

Metaio’s Thermal Touch And The Future Of Augmented Reality User Interfaces | TechCrunch

Metaio’s Thermal Touch And The Future Of Augmented Reality User Interfaces | TechCrunch:



There are some obvious issues on how this would work on warmer than human finger or unevenly heated surfaces. Also it is unclear what are the maximum data rates could be achieved, as it takes some time for surface to cool after the finger removed. Nevertheless interesting idea. Perhaps it could be combined with some more traditional touch detection approaches.



'via Blog this'

HOVER: Add the power of hand gestures + touch to your Arduino project.

Hover could be ordered now for $39. It is a cheap way to add gesture control to your Arduino project.
From interesting features it should be noted that it has detection range up to 5 inches. All gesture recognition is done with MGC3130. It is unclear if it is possible to get the raw data from the sensor to develop custom gesture recognition algorithms, besides the ones provided by MGC3130.

TECHNICAL SPECS

• Compatible with any Arduino
• Uses the MGC3130 as the gesture & touch controller
• Powered by 3.3V
• Breadboard friendly (6 pins)
• Uses I2C and two GPIOs to communicate with host (see pin mapping below)
• Compatible with 5V and 3.3V microcontrollers (on-board logic level shifting for I2C lines
• I2C slave @ address 0x42
• Gesture Detection Range: up to 5 inches. 
• Gestures Supported: up, down, left, right (more gestures like circular motion will be supported once library is finalized)
• Touch Features: up to 5 electrodes can be used for touch input. 
• Dimensions: 2.25 inches x 2.43 inches

VIDEO

 
Hover Gestures from emran on Vimeo.

Nod Gesture Control Ring

TechCrunch reports that "Nod Gesture Control Ring Is Designed For Continual Wear, Starts Selling Today For $149"



Pre-order from https://hellonod.com/

Duet: Exploring Joint Interactions on a Smart Phone and a Smart Watch

"The emergence of smart devices (e.g., smart watches and smart eyewear) is redefining mobile interaction from the solo performance of a smart phone, to a symphony of multiple devices. In this paper, we present Duet -- an interactive system that explores a design space of interactions between a smart phone and a smart watch. Based on the devices' spatial configurations, Duet coordinates their motion and touch input, and extends their visual and tactile output to one another. This transforms the watch into an active element that enhances a wide range of phone-based interactive tasks, and enables a new class of multi-device gestures and sensing techniques. A technical evaluation shows the accuracy of these gestures and sensing techniques, and a subjective study on Duet provides insights, observations, and guidance for future work."

Gesture Script

GestKeyboard: Enabling Gesture-Based Interaction on Ordinary Physical Ke...

"At CHI 2014, National University of Singapore PhD Candidate Haimo Zhang and Google Research Scientist Yang Li presented GestKeyboard, a novel technique for gesturing on an ordinary, unmodified physical keyboard."



Read more at Research at Google blog.

Apple new touchscreen tech would use IR light to discern hard presses from soft

Appleinsider reports that Apple new touchscreen tech would use IR light to discern hard presses from soft: "Apple's proposed invention, as described by a patent application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Thursday, uses frustrated total internal reflection in conjunction with other touch sensing technology to determine how hard a user is pressing on a device screen. "

Microsoft Demos Its Touch-Focused Office Suite For Windows | TechCrunch

TechCrunch reports: "This morning at its Build developer conference in San Francisco, Microsoft showed off the coming touch-friendly build of its Office suite coming for the Windows platform. "

HTC One M8 offers gesture while screen is off

Meet The HTC One ‘M8′, Available Today With Google Play Edition Shipping Soon | TechCrunch: "The new HTC One offers gesture control, another popular feature among new smartphones. The M8 has what HTC is calling Motion Launch, which is a series of gesture controlled shortcuts to let you activate the screen, answer calls, and turn the lock screen on and off without swiping or tapping. It does this using low-power monitoring of orientation, speed, etc., with its onboard sensors to predict what you’ll want to do when you unlock the device."



'via Blog this'

Samsung Working With Startup Partners To Add Gesture-Based Smart Home Control To TVs | TechCrunch

TechCrunch reports:

"Samsung is reportedly (via WSJ) preparing for a smart home control interface that uses your smart TV to recognize basic hand gestures, directed at the objects you actually want to control. So, for example, it would allow you to point at a lamp to turn it off or on, or to other nearby objects to affect them in different ways."

The Ring Input Device Puts Gesture Control And Home Automation On Your Finger | TechCrunch

The Ring Input Device Puts Gesture Control And Home Automation On Your Finger | TechCrunch:

"The Ring is a hardware device that resembles an ordinary (if slightly chunky) ring, filled with sensors and electronics to give it the ability to control devices and render input. It can enable gesture controls, of the kind you’d get with a Wii remote, for instance, as well as text input by drawing letters in the air, gesture-based authorization for finalizing payments, and transmit alerts from connected devices via a built-in vibration motor and onboard LED."

Ring is a KickStarter project.

The Eye Tribe

The Eye Tribe claim to offer "The world's first $99 eye tracker with full SDK".

Apple patents headphones with 'head gesture' control

From recent Apple's patent filing report:

"As the activity monitor also incorporates accelerometers, Apple proposes a novel means of hands-free navigation involving head gestures. For example, users can change music tracks and adjust volume by tilting or rotating their head in predefined manners. To avoid accidental activation, a priming procedure like a button press may be used to initiate the gesture sequence." 

It was filled in 2007.

MIT Contest Winner 3dim Brings Gesture Control to Mobile Devices - Venture Capital Dispatch - WSJ

MIT Contest Winner 3dim Brings Gesture Control to Mobile Devices - Venture Capital Dispatch - WSJ:

"The winner of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s 2013 MIT $100k business-plan competition, 3dim Tech, has created software that brings “gestural interaction” to smart mobile devices of any kind."

CES 2014: Intel Shows Off Its Depth-Detecting Camera [Video] | Popular Science

CES 2014: Intel Shows Off Its Depth-Detecting Camera [Video] | Popular Science:

"It’s part of a push by Intel to create a series of sensors under their RealSense banner that are more intuitive, and the tech is coming to gadgets from a bunch of manufacturers, like Dell, Lenovo, and HP. The company also showed off some gesture recognition tech for tablets, Leap Motion style, that could be used with the camera. "

Synaptics going driverless

DailyTech - CES 2014: Synaptics Shows Off New Touch Tech:

"One of the biggest recent innovations has been the switch to driverless devices and advance being co-championed by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT).  With its latest laptop touchpads a tiny onboard ASIC (application-specific integrated circuit) handles all the responsibilities directly that drivers would have done.  The tiny chip even interfaces with connected networks via the motherboard bus to updates its internal firmware."

This is a bad news for researchers and developers like myself. That means that the gesture recognition algorithms will be even further removed from software and only ones implemented in firmware by the vendor will be able to access touch sensor raw data.

The Fin Is A Bluetooth Ring That Turns Your Hand Into An Interface

TechCrunch reports: The Fin Is A Bluetooth Ring That Turns Your Hand Into An Interface | TechCrunch

Here’s how it works: by tucking an optical sensor into a small ring placed around your thumb, the Fin is able to detect swipes and taps across your hand. When it detects a gesture, it sends that command off to your connected device — be it a smartphone, TV, or another wearable device."

Product rendering:

IK Multimedia brings spatial gesture controls to iOS with 'iRing'

IK Multimedia brings spatial gesture controls to iOS with 'iRing' (via AppleInsider).

It is using front-facing camera and special "ring" with easy to detect pictogram.
Far from groundbreaking but smart.

New 'Sensus' case adds pressure-sensitive touchpads to Apple's iPhone

AppleInsider reports that New 'Sensus' case adds pressure-sensitive touchpads to Apple's iPhone.

"The Sensus case uses a proprietary new touch detecton system that parent company Canopy calls Variable Pressure Technology. Canopy's technology differs from traditional capacitive and resistive touch sensors, the company says, because it combines both touch detection and force detection into a single, rubber-like surface. "

OnTheGo raises $700k seed round to work on gestures for smart glasses

TechCruch reports:

OnTheGo Platforms believes the current smart glasses experience on devices like Google Glass is fundamentally broken. Users shouldn’t have to use a touchpad to interact with the device. Instead, OnTheGo’s vision, as it’s CEO Ryan Fink explained today, is to use the glasses’ front-facing camera to recognize gestures so people can “interact naturally with smart glasses.”

Introducing OnTheGo Platforms from OnTheGo Platforms on Vimeo.

The video from the article shows some nice demos using Google Glass. While using camera for gesture recognition is not a new idea, usually the camera us facing the user. The camera embedded in the glass gives a different perspective and allows to introduce a whole different set of gestures.