Data Glove That Turns Gestures Into Commands 212
ravidew writes: "Three students at Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center, University of California, have built a motion-sensing glove that can transmit hand gestures to a PC. Within 3 years they hope to build sensors that are no bigger than 1mm and can be glued to each fingernail. Now you can really tell Windows what you think ..." While you're at the Sensor and Actuator Center, check out Kris Pister's smart dust.
thjis was a damn Dilbert Cartoon!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Oh dear god... (Score:4, Funny)
Me like.... (Score:1, Informative)
Anyone remember Nintendo's glove-thingy? That was *awesome* for Punch-out!
just what we need. (Score:1)
Ahh, the possibilities (Score:1, Interesting)
While scratching my butt.. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:While scratching my butt.. (Score:3, Funny)
That reminds me of the one about voice recognition. A sales rep is in the middle of doing a presentation for such a system when somebody in the audience stands up and shouts "FORMAT SEE COLON" and then another guy stands up and yells "YES RETURN".
And yes, the moderators are humor impaired.
Re:While scratching my butt.. (Score:1)
This is great! (Score:1)
Nintendo Power Glove, anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)
Can I play Super Mario Bros. with this one?
One a serious note, while it looks pretty cool, you can't help but think it will prove to be less useful than the traditional methods "used to decipher and translate hand gestures into computer interepreted symbols". Still, it's only there to prove it could be done. Who among the programmers out there wants to tell me if they;d find this useful?
Useful to programmers (Score:1)
I'd use it more like a macro keyboard, really.
-WS
Re:Nintendo Power Glove, anyone? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: nice peace of hardware (Score:2, Informative)
And some images are located there [dmu.ac.uk]:
That's nice... (Score:1)
Here's some other, slightly more useful links. (Score:3, Informative)
Adapted uses of the Power Glove to VR world navigation [dmu.ac.uk]
History of the Power Glove [angelfire.com]
Dismissing pop-ups (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Dismissing pop-ups (Score:2)
The American gesture is pretty easy to figure out for someone learning the culture, but can anyone explain to me the history of the British gesture? I once heard a crazy rumor that it had something to do with the French and archers.
Say Goodbye to the Keyboard (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Say Goodbye to the Keyboard (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Say Goodbye to the Keyboard (Score:1, Insightful)
Besides, typing using sign language would also mean that millions of people would then have to learn sign language first before they could type. Whereas with speech recognition, there would be no time wasted in retraining people (i.e. employees).
Finger nail.... (Score:1, Funny)
But, they would have to be cheap anyway, since fingers nails grow and move and chips which didn't get damaged would fall off.
Of course a whole cyberborg army is no match for a couple of really powerful magnets....
I'm not getting the chip.....
applications for lonely computer professionals (Score:2, Funny)
"Few, I am exhausted. I just pulled off 10 lines of code!"
"I just do not have any more code in me for today..."
Now you can get back to your own sick mind.
And the 16-year-olds get all the jobs... (Score:2)
New? (Score:1)
Well done to them but unless they provide armrests my arms will get tired real quick. Think of the bodyguards in Payback if you don't see my point.
It would look very cool to use them, but only if there was some 3D holographic display.......and it was....er....tactile...or something.
Give Windows the finger... literally? (Score:2, Funny)
Not very useful (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyone out there do this sort of programming? How hard is it to get a computer to understand complex gestures???
Re:Not very useful (Score:2, Insightful)
Smart Dust (Score:2)
Massively manufactured, at large scales could make for some very interesting deployment opportunities...
Of course, the nefarious applications for this sort of thing are pretty obvious.
And yet, that still shouldn't be a reason not to develop this technology.
Re:Smart Dust (Score:2)
A friend of mine was a grad student there for a time, working with this prof. He said that the amount of power you could pump through a cubic meter of these puppies was serious impressive.
Re:Smart Dust (Score:1)
Re:Smart Dust (Score:1)
smart-dust-like devices explicitly.
Useful bit of code (Score:1)
reboot -t now }
else if ((finger2 == up) && (finger1 == up) && (other_fingers == down)) {
rm -rf
Interfacing, the real computer bottleneck (Score:2, Insightful)
There are already experiements with direct patching into the brain, and just think of the virus possibilities of running Outlook on that platform.
Re:Interfacing, the real computer bottleneck (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Interfacing, the real computer bottleneck (Score:2)
You never heard any of the car dealer or furniture store spots I used to have to record where the client writes out about 90 seconds worth of copy and the station's salesperson adds about 30 seconds worth more and then expected me to do it as a 60 second spot.
When I took a breath before hitting "record", the production room door bowed in.
I remember those things. (Score:3, Informative)
I've also seen schematics & drivers so that you can connect your power glove to a serial port & use it as a mouse replacement.
Re:I remember those things. (Score:1)
I tried it out. It seemed to have a lot of trouble detecting what I was actually doing. Perhaps it was because the receivers were so close to a wall, that it was getting echoes.
Ahh, the powerglove (Score:1)
Re:I remember those things. (Score:2)
Nope. Serial port. I had one hooked up to a Mac (RS-422A) to make a "MIDI theremin". The Glove's resolution was too coarse for melodic use, but it was good enough for drum samples ("Drum Kit Descending a Staircase: a Musical Homage to Buddy Rich and Marcel Duchamp").
k.
Re:I remember those things. (Score:1)
Re:I remember those things. (Score:2)
And if I remember right, it didn't use metal in the fingers, but some sort of resistive ink that would change the amount of electricity based on the bend.
Re:I remember those things. (Score:2, Informative)
This thing, on the other hand (no pun intended, honest!), uses accelerometers, which are probably more reliable than the metal strips, and don't require any receivers. The down-side is that it won't give you an absolute position, unless you do some calibration (but the Power-Glove didn't do that either).
Haiku (Score:5, Funny)
My middle finger extends:
Control-Alt-Delete
Re:Haiku (Score:2)
I think I played with this: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I think I played with this: (Score:2, Interesting)
I seem to recall REALLY stinking at it...
On topic, however, I think these have a lot more use than a power glove. I can see where major motions might be needed at first, but eventually they could detect millimeter finger travel, allowing for a 2.1 Million Key Keyboard, or some such.
Of course, the best use is for operator controlled surgical/mechanical machines. Being able to duplicate the finesse of an expert in an environment that a human could never operate in would be wonderful.
-WS
Computer input devices going in two directions (Score:2)
When we're actually trying to get something done with computers, we wave our hands in the air because it removes contact from devices, gets rid of all force feedback, and. . . well. . . er. .
been there done that. (Score:2)
Used more for VR and hacking than any other interface in the early 90's. I was able to map commands to gestures in DOS, and to some limit in linux around 1996.
The fact that it isn't bulky or cyber-looking like the powerglove was and hopefully it doesn't have that nasty Ultrasonic rangefinding.
Windows? (Score:2)
I like the one that looks out the back window.
Oh, the software! I thought XP could read my mind and phone home about it.
Really though, do you think the company that has yet to embrace multiple virtual screens and mice with three buttons properly, will ever use this? Sure, the prototype uses Win95 (at least they knew better than to use MS for web stuff. quoth the page, "meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/4.75 [en] (X11; U; SunOS 5.7 sun4u) [Netscape]"") Will MS really pick it up and make it available with their GUI? I think not. Xfree86 will beat them to real and invovative uses for the interface by years!
Kudos to Hollar et al. This is a cool glove. MJ wants to know if you have one with rhine stones.
power (Score:1)
Great keyboard replacement for handhelds (Score:4, Insightful)
It also one-ups the mouse-keyboard combination, no more mouse/touchpad. Just lift your forefinger off the virtual keyboard and move the mouse pointer by pointing at the screen. Your fingers never have to leave the home-row.
For those that can't touch-type, unroll a cheat-sheet and type on it.
This will be a GREAT technology once it matures.
Re:Great keyboard replacement [for gaming] (Score:2)
I've seen, somewhere, a keyboard made for gaming (central arrowkeys with conveniently placed programmable buttons around it) but this would be that all hollow. Just think about it for a second... any key, any where you wanted it! Programmable, personalized, keyboards!
(Damn, now I want one of these things sometime tomorrow).
Re:Great keyboard replacement for handhelds (Score:3, Informative)
Those roll-out mat keyboards have been around for some time. They drive touch typists nuts because they don't "feel" anything like typing.
I personally still use an 8-pound IBM PS/2 keyboard because I crave the clickety-clack of those wonderful mechanical switches.
clickety-clack (Score:2)
There goes my job... (Score:1)
Been there, done that, love it! (Score:4, Informative)
I used dual 3-axis accelerometers for the hand motion, and discrete switches to determine
finger joint position. The wires were sewn into the glove directly.
The result was very accurate hand movement, with the trade off of less complex finger movements.
Needless to say, I like the idea. It is a _very_ natural interface for a lot of applications. The glove is a little unwieldy, but for some reason beyond comprehension, everyone who does this seems to build theirs around the heaviest winter glove they can find... What someone needs to do is to build this using discreet sealed components, on the outside of thin, air-holed neoprene (similar to a bicyclist's glove.)
Also, the software is the key to whether this really works out. You need a virtual keyboard app (similar to what pen laptops use), plus a gesture pad (a la grafitti or CAD gestures), plus a standard mouse driver. (I never got around to polshing my software beyond anywhere other than manipulating a Rubik's-style 3D Cube. No, you couldn't acutally solve it.)
Re:Been there, done that, love it! (Score:1)
I really hope the posting AC reads this
The future of user input (Score:2)
The strange thing is that in keyboards and WIMP user interfaces, we seem to have reached a point where it is far from obvious where we can progress next. There hasn't been significant progress in user interfaces since the 1970s when Xerox Parc developed the mouse based interfaces which we all use today - oh sure, we have colour, and that paper clip, and skinability, but none of these are anything other than incremental enhancements.
Many people are betting on 3D user interfaces, but I remain unconvinced that these will actually be useful, or that a 2D representation of objects in 3D would be better than the 2D representation of objects in 2D which we have now.
Most new input devices are also variations on the mouse theme, be they light-pens (hardly new, I remember them in the mid-80s), touch screens, or these gloves.
So the question is, have we reached a global optimum in user interface design, or is there some other approach that I haven't even considered that we will all be using in 30 years?
Re:The future of user input (Score:2)
I agree completely. However, saying, "Open E-Mail. New. Open 4. Reply. Blah Blah Blah. Send. Close E-Mail. Open Browser. www.slashdot.org" is really easy. (Except for Slashdot... maybe consider a name change soon?)
For me, this interface would be much better then mouse/ keyboard, because it's so fast. That's faster then now (I think) and it's no more, or even less, boring stuff. (Saying Open E-Mail is equivalent to clicking an icon).
That's going to be the future interface, for most basic programs, in a few years... Heck, we already have voice recognition typing software! How hard can it be to step it up a notch?
Oh, I'm also envisioning personalized commands, ie: "1" is analagous to "Open E-Mail" or something.
Re:The future of user input (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree. English as a language is too ambiguous for computer use. And the way Americans (like myself) speak it makes it even worse as American English is fraught with homonyms.
I know it will never be tried, but classical Latin would be far better for computer input, as it is the least ambiguous language I am aware of.
Back on the subject of gesture input though, I think the Chinese will be able to put this technology to practical use sooner than anyone else. I count at least half a dozen fully-mature products from Hong Kong and Taiwan (I use Power Pen) that use a wacom pad to enter Chinese and English (and Japanese) language text into Windows PC's. With Power Pen, you can use the stylus as the only interface to the PC.
The neat thing about Chinese is, if you draw the characters with the proper stroke order, you can enter entire sentences on the fly without lifting your pen.
So if the glove mentioned could be rigged to run Power Pen, or something like it, so one could just write characters on the desk with their fingers, a Chinese person could use it as the only interface to their PC pretty much immediately.
Immersion Corp already sells em (Score:2)
What's more, they combine this idea with haptics, attaching motors so that when you interact with objects, they push back on you. You can even rest your hand on an object and have the motors support the weight of your arm. Very Cool.
http://www.immersion.com/products/3d/intera ction/o verview.shtml
fingernail communications? (Score:1)
Perfect for banner ads! (Score:1)
close(freakinAnnoyingBannerAd);
}
I can't wait.
Unlimited commercial potential (Score:5, Funny)
If:
The crotch-scratching motion is detected on a regular basis, you might get more pop-up ads for Gold Bond Medicated Powder.
Likewise, another common motion among those who sit all day might put some Preparation H commercials in your future.
Your typical 13-year-old might get more porn adverts, 'tis true...
The common nose-picking gestures might queue some Kleenex adverts up for your viewing.
Yes indeed, we should all sign up for this technology as there is no doubt that it will improve our lives beyond measure.
They should get together with the battery guys (Score:2, Insightful)
Smart liquid... (Score:2, Funny)
I want to be able to DRINK an upgrade and have it interface with me directly. A pint of CPUs on the house! That way I can drink and actually get SMARTER [barbelith.com] instead of the current opposite result.
The next level of interface. (Score:2, Interesting)
Anyway, I have a feeling, like gasoline, television and so many other legacy tools that are so entrenched in our lives, this will be slow to catch on. I'd like to be an early adopter but I'm not smart enough, heh...
Our natural communication tools should be our interface to our machines...
Johny Mnemonic, Anyone? (Score:3, Informative)
oh come on, that's old (Score:1)
It was called the Nintento Power Glove.
It let me beat up Glass Joe, the Hippo, and Mike Tyson.
And it was grand.
other uses for this (Score:1)
All this would be very neat though... remember that all tech that doesn't look like it's magic, is not advanced enough...
uXs
This is dumb. (Score:1)
Prove to your local NT guy that Joysticks aren't just for Quake! http://freshmeat.net/projects/joyd/
You can map a very large amount of commands to different joystick functions, from pushing one button, or moving 1 direction - to moving to corner, and pushing several buttons at once. You can also execute more than one command with just one function.
Accidents... (Score:2)
It seems to me that you need some sort of disconnect override. Maybe some sort of camera that can tell when you're looking at the screen. (I seem to recall hearing something about that on here in the past...)
Nostalgia (Score:2)
Re:Nostalgia (Score:2)
By looking into it (with the URL I gave above), I actually downloaded a colorized version of it. It ran fine under Classic. It's as perverted as I remembered it.
Major Implications... (Score:1)
Yet, I still think of Ender's Game and Infocom's A Mind Forever Voyaging and their ideas of immmersive technology. Leaps in AI (well, game AIs would create a reasonable personality to interact with), voice recognition, these controls and even the thermoelectrics in the earlier story means that we're stepping into territory where we have to take care.
Still, imagine your PDA in 15 years...
The p0rn apps . . . (Score:1)
The battle of the sexes will never be won . . . there's too much fraternizing with the enemy.
--Randal
Battlebots, anyone? (Score:2)
Re:Battlebots, anyone? (Score:2)
Gestures have problems usage-wise as far as I'm concerned...most people don't move their hands exactly the same way every time. So you have to make the range of motion for each gesture fairly wide so it includes enough of the common mistakes to work reliably. But those wide ranges start to add up fast, so you have to make the gestures themselves bigger so you can reliably differentiate between gestures. A finger hitting a button or a hand throwing a stick to the right has very little room for error. No "is that really right, or is it up and right?" problems. Not to mention the innate tactile feedback of a button is a great thing.
science and magic (Score:1)
Just Imagine (Score:1)
Of course, the first industry to adopt this will be pornogrophy. Imagine the new possibilities for cybersex!
So... (Score:1)
This could make EMACS usable! (Score:3, Funny)
palms-down = normal
palms-45-degrees = ctrl
palms-sideways = alt
palms-up (yikes) = meta (or whatever)
etc.
and "type" normally.
And for vi, just turn your wrists sideways a bit to enter "edit mode."
Never mind, this is a stupid idea.
it has to be said... (Score:1)
Now, if only I can keep my kid brother from trying to get to a huge dinosaur statue in California...
A better input device? (Score:2)
Can it be used to input text more rapidly than a keyboard?
I doubt it. The example which comes to mind is how Palm decided to deal with the difficulties in handwriting recognition; that is, by devising their own alphabet and forcing the users to learn it, rather than designing software which attempted to understand each individual's idiomatic writing style. The designers of this glove interface would face the same decision -- and it's important to remember that many attempts at user-adaptive recognition have failed. So, assuming that users would have to learn a gesture alphabet to use the glove, how fast could they "type?" Although I've practiced Graffiti diligently, I seem to top out around the 30 wpm which Palm claims is the maximum. On the other hand, I can easily type 90-100 wpm on a keyboard.
Can it be more intuitive and/or more precise than a mouse?
Again, I doubt it. The screen, the tabletop that the mouse moves on, and the desktop software (X, Windows, Mac, etc.) are all designed for 2-D interactions. What's the use of having an extra degree of freedom with the controller? I'm sure that it would be possible to develop a 3-D desktop environment, but what about all of the 2-D standard applications? I doubt that I could get the same precision drawing objects in PowerPoint, for instance, using my whole arm (or at least my forearm) for hours a day than I can with a mouse. Fatigue would eventually cause a lot of inaccuracy.
Speaking of fatigue...will this input device be more helpful for avoiding repetitive motion injuries?
I'm not an ergonomics expert, but it seems as if you would be prone to repetitive motions of a different kind. Yes, using keyboards and mice for hours a day is a bad thing in the long run. But is trading carpal tunnel syndrome for, say, tendinitis in the elbow any better of a situation?
I'm sure there would be SOME use for this kind of technology. But I don't see it as being a wholesale improvement over current input methods for the kinds of systems we have. Although I usually hate to use the word "paradigm" in polite company, I think it's fair to say that our whole notion of computing is built on a "flat paradigm", for better or worse. Ultimately, we will have to design different displays and ways of thinking in order to restructure our interactions with computers. It will take more than a glove.
(Whew...got through the whole post without making one Michael Jackson joke...)
Virtual keyboards (Score:2, Interesting)
Will anybody flip off Windoze? (Score:2)
Now all we need is a new clause in the Mafiasoft Windoze license agreement in addition to some innovative technology. The clause would state that you shall not flip off Mafiasoft Windoze. The technology would be a double-barreled shotgun mounted to a robotic base on top of the computer monitor. This shotgun would be fired by a solenoid controlled by Mafiasoft Windoze. Every time Mafiasoft Windoze detects that it's being flipped off, it will simultaneously perform two innovative actions:
1. It will fire the shotgun at the user's head, roadrage-style.
2. It will reboot and display the following message:
Mafiasoft: Where do you want to pay today?
Re:Will anybody flip off Windoze? (Score:2)
As a side note, Mafiasoft could license these technologies to the MPAA and RIAA. Every time Mafiasoft Windoze or an application detects that the user is trying to play a copyrighted song, the user will be shot in the head. This will be stated in the license agreement, which every person in the world, upon birth, will be required to accept (Mafiasoft's monopoly will cover the right to breath oxygen by the time this is implemented--if you do not accept the terms of this license agreement, well, let's just say you have to accept the terms of this license agreement).
For innovation's sake and added convenience, Mafiasoft will implement hooks for VBS files to fire the shotgun as well. By leveraging these innovative technologies, virus providers will streamline compelling virus solutions.
(You know what? I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if something retarded like this actually got released by that company.)
Mafiasoft: Where do you want to pay today?
Great! ... but *FAR* from first!!! (Score:2)
Sounds like what Jaron Lanier [barberusa.com] was doing 30 years ago. You can read all about it in Howards Rheingold [rheingold.com]'s excellent book Virtual Reality [rheingold.com] circa 1991. (not to take away from their efforts.)
Re:...when he was in 5th grade? (Score:2)
"Sounds like what Jaron Lanier was doing 30 years ago"
" Lanier was born in 1960. Inventing a data glove in 1971 when he was eleven, only shortly after the first mouse was built, would have been impressive indeed.
OK, admittedly I exagerrated, and I should have said 'working on' , not 'doing.' was trying to remember back to 1991, when I read "Virtual Reality" in all fairness though.
Force feedback... (Score:2)
On a more serious note: More accurate long distance surgery.
More applications of Smartdust (Score:1)
The most salient feature is that the small size and capability for independent operations allow Smartdust motes to be used just about anywhere, to enhance/complement existing tools.
But can anyone bring it to market? (Score:2)
And there have been tons of 3d glasses that have come and gone - I've even got a video card in my machine that has a special hookup for 3d glasses and of course you can't find any.
So, is there any chance of this stuff ever making it onto the shelves of Best Buy or CompUSA?
Really... (Score:2)
That would be like giving sight to the blind. I've yet to come up with wording to describe what I think when I use Windows. let alone a gesture that would do suffice.
Nothing new (Score:2, Informative)
Their homepage. [5dt.com]
Their hardware page (includes data gloves). [5dt.com]
One of the data glove pages. [5dt.com]
Re:Nothing new (Score:2)
Ack! Gaa! Look at the prices! $500 for a glove, $1000 for a wireless version. And that's the budget glove! The good one is $3950/$4450 for the tethered/wireless versions.
You have got to wonder exactly who they are selling these devices to. University research departments, probably. ;)
That said, this is a really informative post. Thanks for it, I'm thinking good karma thoughts your way.
Ah, rebooting made easy.... (Score:2)
So Where's the Beowulf Post for the Smart Dust? (Score:2)
Smart Dust and Vinge's "Deepness in the Sky" (Score:2)
Re:Oklahoma, OK! (Score:2)
Re:Let me get this straight... (Score:1)
Apparently, we are.
The 9/11 tragedy was terrible. Last I saw on CNN, over 300 people have been confirmed dead, and over five thousand are missing. But, how many people do you hear going around saying the same basic thing you said, but about Pearl Harbor? The atomic bomb? World War I, the "war to end all wars"? The Civil War? The American Revolution? Or even OKC? Until now. I haven't heard many people on the street cursing others for going on with their daily lives when only a few years ago several people died in the OKC bombing. Why? Because we moved on.
And even now, we (and by "we", I mean Joe Average, like me) need to move on. Our best hope to defeat the intent of these terrorists is to go on with our daily lives. I'm not saying we should forget the people who died for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or their families and friends, or the totally awesome police, firemen, and volunteers who are still out there, weeks after it all happened, searching for survivors and digging through the wreckage. Slashdot is a technology news site and *nix advocacy site, not a typical news site/organization like CNN, AP, Reuters, etc. Therefore, it should not be expected to just drop everything and keep updating the site with news about the rescue efforts.
On that note, what do YOU think Slashdot should be doing? I notice nowhere above where you posted what you think Slashdot should do to correct itself. Your post came off sounding more like a flame against "computer-playing-linux-geeks".
I know nothing about you. Maybe someone you know and love is still missing. Maybe you just live in NY. Maybe you have loved ones in the Armed Forces who may be in danger in the future should this whoel situation escalate. Maybe you are just a concerned American who is only affected by the attacks patrioticly and symbolicly, like me. (excuse my spelling if it's incorrect, please)
This whole damn situation should not be forgotten. But we have to move on eventually.