Imagine you’re shopping on the Internet and are able to control your digital purchasing experience through your gestures. You’re playing a new computer game and controlling the characters through your body movement. New smartwatches, smartphones and tablets reacting entirely to your movements. Is gesture and motion control the way of the future?
Gesture and motion control: what is behind it?
The technology is remarkably simple: you operate a device through gestures and movement. The programme or game in question reacts live and in real time to your executed arm and body movements. The underlying technical concept has already been around for a few years. Major players such as Microsoft, Samsung and Apple have incorporated motion-dependent control of certain elements in various of their products. An impressive example of early motion control is Nintendo’s Wii. Here the controllers act as a motion element, but alongside the push of a button they also react to the motion of your arms. And so a completely new form of play identification, gaming fun and activity was created.
Has gesture and motion control also caught on in other fields?
Ever since the rise of smartphones, gesture and motion control technology has been enjoying a reawakening. How do you operate your smartphone? Exclusively through swiping, movements and various finger slides. This is the exact same technology that lies behind professional gesture and motion control. But it doesn’t stop here: with Windows 8, Microsoft created an intuitive, motion-reactive operating system, which radically enhanced its usability. The objective of motion control is to facilitate an authentic and above all a natural operating experience for computers, websites or programmes.
LeapMotion: what exactly is it and what does it do?
LeapMotion is a small peripheral device for your computer. Its modern technology allows you to operate the computer and special programmes through hand motions, allowing you, among other things, to control CAD drawings, musical instruments as well as drones, exclusively through gestures and movement.
Microsoft is also involved: Perceptual Computing
Perceptual Computing involves Microsoft operating its in-house “Kinect” technology. This technology has been completely updated and expanded to include a 3D close-range camera as well as a microphone. This not only enables the control of games and programmes, but also allows for a professional and innovative security system. Imagine holding a photo of yourself in front of such a camera. The system analyses the overall displayed effect on a 3D level. This then allows you to generate a login system, in which the camera “scans” your face and consequently unlocks the device in question.
Does gesture and motion control represent relevant technological progress?
We should certainly rejoice over what is being developed in the coming months, regardless of whether or not it involves a more intuitive operating experience of a smartphone, smartwatch or even a computer. Using different methods and technologies of gesture and motion control, it is also quite possible that entire Internet pages can in future be exclusively controlled via movement and gestures. We look forward to this with eager anticipation!