Gizmodo: touchless

Microsoft Research Demos Magically Touch-Less, Transparent Glass Display

Rosa Golijan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:51:12 EST

Microsoft's research division is doing tours across college campuses and rather than turning them into snoozefests they're showing off a prototype straight outta Iron Man fantasies. It's a clear glass display which accepts input through voice-control, touch-less gestures, and eye-tracking.

iStartedSomething has videos showing the prototype in action, and it looks like it's got quite some potential, whether genuinely useful for manipulating data or for just plain fun. I can't wait until displays like this come out so that I can control my computer by staring it down after some foolish hand waving. [iStartedSomething via Slashgear]

Elliptic Touchless UI Puts the Input Interface in Thin Air

Haroon Malik — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 11:00:00 EST

Touchscreen interfaces are great, but all that touching, like foreplay, can be a little bit of a drag. Enter the wonder kids from Elliptic Labs, who are hard at work on implementing a touchless interface. The input method is, well, in thin air. The technology detects motion in 3D and requires no special worn-sensors for operation. By simply pointing at the screen, users can manipulate the object being displayed in all three dimensions. Details are light on how this actually functions, but what we do know is this:

Sensors are mounted around the screen that is being used, by interacting in the line-of-sight of these sensors the motion is detected and interpreted into on-screen movements. What is to stop unintentional gestures being used as input is not entirely clear, but it looks promising nonetheless. The best part? Elliptic Labs says their technology will be easily small enough to be implemented into cellphones and the like. iPod touchless, anyone? Check out the video to see it in action. [Elliptic Labs via Technabob]

Nokia Patents S60 Touchless Gesture UI

Wilson Rothman — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 13:57:32 EST

According to patents, Nokia has developed a user-interface that goes beyond multitouch, and into the realm of tracking hand motions in three-dimensional space. The gestures look complicated, and I'm worried it might take longer to learn than Palm's Graffiti writing, but I'm willing to start with the one-finger commands (select, rotate, delete) before moving on to the two-fingered stuff (zoom, resize, etc.). [Unwired View via Boy Genius]

Touchless Keyboard Lets Disabled People Type With Their Heads

Wilson Rothman — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 09:01:10 EDT

This touchless keyboard system's breakthrough is that it combines both the typing and the mousing in a single sensor. When configured on a standard PC, the user wears the headgear shown in the picture, and navigates and types by moving their head and neck. Here's what separates this product from similar ones:

The machine translation is quite shaky:

Kana dedicated keyboard input specification and development of new acceleration sensor module with Ma UNTOSENSA.

From what I can tell, that means the innovations include a dedicated single input for both keyboard and mouse functionality, and an acceleration sensor that measures not just the movements themselves, but their force and three-dimensional direction too.

Akihabara quotes the price in euros, nearly 1800€, so that means well over $2,000. For now. [Actbrise via Akihabara News]

How To Build A Touchless Lightswitch

Jason Chen — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 20:35:22 EDT

Other than gimmicks like The Clapper, we've always had to turn on and off our lights by touching stuff. No longer, my friends, as Ryan from Gogglemarks has made a switch powered by a capacitive sensor. To switch on and off the lights, just make any sudden moves in a close proximity to the sensor. Wicked. – Jason Chen

HOWTO Build a Touchless Lightswitch [Gogglemarks via Make via Hacked Gadgets]

Don't Touch That Dimmer!

tgrumet — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 09:31:29 EST

If you have any urge to buy a dimmer switch for your lights, then here's a hell of a concept. Seems that with the Anigmo touch-less dimmer switch—you just have to be near it for it to dim. Imagine that? Fabulous! I've been waiting for years for an innovation like this. I'm so damn tired of touching dimmers, it's absolutely exhausting. Now, using "patented proximity technology," you just wave your hand near the dimmer, which can be hidden behind decorative plates, and bango, your lights go down automatically. Who needs a clapper? Or fingers for that matter.

Anigmo Touchless Dimmer Switch [i4u]