Random Accesses

Gloves that are wired with sensors can provide useful information about a user's motions, and they offer a novel way to interact with computers beyond the keyboard and mouse. At the end of May, AnthroTronix, a company based in Silver Spring, MD, released its first commercial version of the AcceleGlove, a programmable glove that records hand and finger movements.

Other gloves--like 5DT's Data Glove, used primarily in virtual reality--normally cost $1,000 to $5,000, but the AcceleGlove costs just $499. It comes with software that lets developers use Java to program it for any application they wish. AnthroTronix initially developed the glove with the U.S. Department of Defense for robotic control. The glove could also be used in video games, sports training, or physical rehabilitation.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22838/

According to The Seattle Times, an interdisciplinary team of scientists of the University of Washington (UW) has developed Vocal Joystick, a software which enables people with disabilities to control their computers using the sound of their voice and without the need to use a mouse.

Their virtual computer mouse driven by sound has already been tested at the UW Medical Center with spinal-cord-injury patients and other participants with varying levels of disabilities. The researchers, who developed their own voice-recognition technology, hope to have a prototype available online this fall.

This research project has been led at UW by various teams including the AIM group (Accessibility, Interaction and Mobility) of professor Jacob Wobbrock or the DUB group (Human-Computer Interaction & Design) where professor Jeff Bilmes created the sound-recognition engine with his students.

Source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/emergingtech/?p=1063

What happened to traditional knobs for volume controls on computers? Replaced with + and - controls on the keyboard, not so easy to find in a hurry.

Imagine a control surface with real knobs, sliders, real switches for your favourite music player, video editor or game. This is SenseSurface, just place the unique controls on your application e.g. a music mixer, and ready to go.

Applications that would normally use a mouse or Qwerty keyboard can be now controlled with traditional knobs. The scroll bar on the right hand side of your computer screen can be controlled with a real slider button. SenseSurface can be used with most laptops with a USB input.

The sensing knobs have a custom designed movement sensor to determine position within approx 180 degrees with a 10 bit digital output, linearity typically 1%. The magnetic knobs can be removed and repositioned immediately by picking them up and moving to a different part of screen.

Source: http://girtonlabs.googlepages.com/sensesurface

It’s a Wii without the $250 console. It’s virtual Pong and so much more. Any object is now an input device, even your fingers.

CamTrax’s core technology is a pure software solution that allows nearly any ordinary PC webcam (95% are supported) to track up to four objects—even as small as 5mm—in real-time and with very high accuracy and reliability. (It works only on Windows). Locking and tracking (X, Y, and Z axes and angle) are all automatic.

Yaron Tanne, founder & CEO of CamTrax Technologies, the company behind CamSpace, has been developing the technology practically single-handedly for three years in his apartment in Tel-Aviv. Tanne claims that most of the algorithms used are in the public domain but have been enhanced. There are also completely new algorithms developed from scratch.

Source: http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/11/camspace-creates-a-wii-for-everyone-minus-the-nintendo-console/

Today’s video games and online virtual worlds give users the freedom to create characters in the digital domain that look and seem more human than ever before. But despite having your hair, your height, and your hazel eyes, your avatar is still little more than just a pretty face.

A group of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is working to change that by engineering characters with the capacity to have beliefs and to reason about the beliefs of others. The characters will be able to predict and manipulate the behavior of even human players, with whom they will directly interact in the real, physical world, according to the team.

At a recent conference on artificial intelligence, the researchers unveiled the “embodiment” of their success to date: “Eddie,” a 4-year-old child in Second Life who can reason about his own beliefs to draw conclusions in a manner that matches human children his age.

Source: http://physorg.com/news124368610.html