This to me is one of the most exciting breakthroughs. It’s probably been around for a while in simple formats but has been making major leaps into more mainstream gadgets. Going back a few years I got my first real taste with the Kinect system for The X-Box. For those that haven’t seen it or know what it is, basically it’s a set of eyes you place on top of your gaming system. It has several types of eyes actually, a regular camera and infrared as well as other technology to track objects.
Sounds like a web cam almost but it’s so much more. It’s the first device, I know of that tracks you without the use of any controller or add-on device that you wear and it holds the Guinness book of records of being the fastest consumer selling electronic device. You become interactively connected to the games now, if you need to jump then that’s what you do, want to practice your fighting then throw a few punches and kicks. Again the interactions are left to the imaginations of the software developers, with other games or software you can also shop for clothes online and see what it would look like on you, simply by waving your hands around in a particular way. Scrolling through movie titles and music is done simply by waving your hand in the direction you’d like to scroll and speaking a word or two with voice recognition being involved as well. The silly pictures it takes of you will you’re playing games is just a bonus.
Whether the motion is tracked through an attached device or something scanning for the motion is really irrelevant. As there are other devices such as an arm band you place around your forearm and it not only tracks your hand motions meaning up and down but also which fingers are being moved and how as well. This is where the excitement comes in because it’s already fun playing around with something that mimics your body gestures but the real excitement comes from breaking the traditional chains that a desk holds for most of us that are tied to the computer. Imagine bringing your computer with you, maybe like a necklace that detects and hears what you say, or maybe a pair of glasses that can do it as well, then again you don’t have to imagine it just read about it in Broken Chains.