Tag: Gesture Control

The researchers behind Shape-It-Up call it a “Hand Gesture Based Creative Expression of 3D Shapes Using Intelligent Generalized Cylinders”, but it’s totally a pottery simulator. Decades from now, if – when? – Paramount Pictures decides to remake Ghost, the characters will be using Shape-It-Up while a dubstep remix of Unchained Melody plays in the background.

Earlier this year we saw AirHarp, a virtual harp that uses the Leap gesture controller, letting the user make music by playing an imaginary harp. The developer behind the AirHarp recently introduced a similar program but for a more popular instrument.

Earlier this year we heard about the Meta, an augmented reality computer in the shape of a pair of glasses. The company behind the computer took a page from the Oculus Rift team and also launched a Kickstarter for the Meta developer’s kit.

To promote his company’s muscle sensor, Brian Kaminski of Advancer Technologies built a toy replica of Iron Man’s repulsor glove. All you have to do is curl your fingers to charge it up and then spread them to unleash devastating… tiny flashes of light.

The Leap motion sensor was one of the most talked about devices last year and rightly so. But until the device itself gets in the hands of ordinary folks, I think MYO just might steal the Leap’s thunder.

There are already a variety of apps that turn iOS and Android devices into wireless mice or trackpads or both. Some of them are even free. But a company called Spicebox thinks you’ll want to pay for a peripheral that does just about the exact same thing.

Google made a lot of people excited about the future when the company showed off a concept video for the Project Glass computer. A month after that, a some of us wet our already wet pants some more when the Leap controller was unveiled.

Early demos of the much-awaited Leap motion sensor mostly showed how it can be used to control graphics programs, browsers and video games. But the motion sensor can also be used to make an audio program, as shown by software developer Adam Somers with his AirHarp demo.

I bet a bunch of us have looked at the touchscreen of a smartphone or tablet before and wished it was the size of a wall for playing games or using other apps. A company called Ubi Interactive is showing off a system that uses the Microsoft Kinect to turn any surface into a touchscreen device that supports gestures.

The Microsoft Kinect certainly changed the playing field for gesture-based input devices, though arguably it’s been a cooler tool for interactive experiments and hacking than for gameplay thusfar. Now, a company called Leap Motion thinks they’ve cracked the formula for gesture control on the desktop with their LEAP controller.

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.

Designers and manufacturers are continuously coming up with ways to reinvent the computer mouse. The most recent one was the Logitech Cube mouse which looked more like a tiny pack of cigarettes than something for use with your computer.

Robots are awesome, and one of the more hackable of them out there is the Qbo, that can be programmed to do all sorts of things. The latest programming hack for the little bot turns the Qbo into a music player that supports gestures for controlling the tunes.

The guys at the ETH – the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have the best jobs on the planet. Not only do they get to play with flying quadrocopters all the time, and have built a special arena just for doing so, they’ve now got them flying using gesture control.

Another day, another Kinect hack. This particular hack is quite cool, mapping the body movements of a human onto the joints of a humanoid robot.

When it comes to playing video games, I head for the PC anytime it’s a shooter. I like driving and racing games on consoles, but other genres are PC or GTFO for me. One geek has taken his PC and Call of Duty, and then hacked up a system that uses the Kinect, the Wii Remote and Nunchuk to control the game.