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. "

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.

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.

Amazon planning 2014 smartphone with advanced 3D gesture & eye tracking input - source

AppleInsider reports:

Amazon's rumored flagship smartphone is said to include a total of six compact camera modules. Four of them are reportedly VGA cameras, located at the four corners of the device, that will allow for 3D gesture and eye tracking.

Google applies for patent on gesture-based car controls

Engadget reports: Google applies for patent on gesture-based car controls.

I happen to know that researches at CMU were experimenting with something similar. I wonder if it might constitute prior art.