Technabob » motion sensing

Flutter for Mac Lets You Pause and Play Via Hand Gestures, No Kinect Required

Lambert Varias — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:00:36 +0000

Until today the things we’ve seen that bear name Flutter are plain stupid – one of them intentionally so, but still. A new program for OS X devices is out to change that. Flutter for Mac lets you control playback on iTunes and Spotify simply by raising your hand. You don’t need any additional equipment to make it work either, because it uses your computer’s iSight webcam as a Kinect-like tool.

The screenshot above and the video below shows Flutter pausing and playing a YouTube video, but the current version of Flutter will only work with iTunes and Spotify. Still, the demo does give a good idea of what Flutter does.

I tried it out myself and it’s easy and fun to use. It’s surprisingly accurate, although I was only able to test it on iTunes because I don’t have a Spotify account. That said, I found it hilarious when I discovered that even if you put another application in the foreground, the gesture will still work as long as Flutter and iTunes are still both running, so be sure to turn off either Flutter or iTunes before you use a video chat app.

For now, it only supports a single gesture to play and pause tunes, but developer Bot Square will soon add other gesture-based functions to Flutter. Accessing Hot Corners via gestures would be nice. You can download Flutter for free on its website, although you do have to sign up and register an email address.

[via The Next Web]

Ben Heck Makes Motion Detecting Hand Sanitizer: No, He Didn’t Use a Kinect

Lambert Varias — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 11:57:51 +0000

Ben Heck may have earned fame and fortune (and possibly love) by creating custom video game devices, but that doesn’t mean that that’s all he’s good for. In the latest episode of The Ben Heck Show the master modder set his sights on a loftier goal – making sure hospital employees keep their hands clean. Acting upon a request of a physician, Heck made a motion detecting, actively reminding and data-logging hand sanitizer.

To sum up the episode, Heck took a button-less hand sanitizer and added motion sensors, a speaker for an audio reminder and indicator lights. As I mentioned the modded sanitizer also logs events, so if the audio cue and the lights don’t convince hospital personnel to wash, their boss will. The man in the argyle sweater is Arun Mathews, the physician who gave Ben Heck the idea for the project. I heartily recommend that you watch the whole show, as jargon-filled as it is, but if you’re pressed for time, you can skip to about 15 minutes in to see the final product in action.

I wonder if using a Kinect would have been overkill for this project. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of Heck come up with any Kinect hacks or mods. Someone send that as an idea for his next show. I have to work.

[The Ben Heck Show via 7 Gadgets]

Green Hisaver Power Strip Senses Motion to Save Power

Shane McGlaun — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 12:00:49 +0000

Being geeky and green can be tough if you have a bunch of high-end power slurping computers running in your house. I like to leave my computer running all the time, so it can backup and do its business while I sleep. I would bet lots of geeks out there do the same.

I might want my PC on all the time, but the printer, speakers and all the other powered crap sitting on the desk attached to the PC don’t need to be on all the time. A new power strip called the HiSaver has surfaced that makes it easy to save power when you leave the room. The HiSaver Powerbar has a remote motion-detecting sensor that sits on your desk. When you leave the room for at least ten minutes, four of the outlets on the thing turn off automatically to save juice.

One outlet at the top of the machine stays on all the time for the PC itself. If you need more than one always-on outlet, one of the four motion sensing outlets can be changed to always on with a flip switch. The thing is cool and can be purchased now for $109.99(USD), making it one of the more costly power strips you’ll ever see.

Wii-Mote Controls Sony Psp

Technabob — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 17:55:34 +0000

I’m not sure why anyone would want to do this, but some guy has managed to interface his PSP with the Nintendo Wii motion-sensing controller.

PSP hacker joesnose MacGyvered together a combination of the GlovePIE, iRShell and Nethostfs libraries to make it all play nicely. The idea that it took a PC, a PSP and the Wii-mote seems like too much work for too little payoff.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

If he could figure out a way to cram the motion sensor circuits and applications inside the PSP, then it would be far more useful. I guess some people just do things to prove they can be done.

[Be sure to check out Joe's excellent NES DVD case mod too. I need one of those.]