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Colorful Gesture Interface Gloves Look Like an '80s Throwback

by Matthew Zuras on May 21, 2010 at 09:00 AM

gesture interface glovesAugmented reality interfaces are currently one of the hottest trends in tech, but they may be on their way to pasture, for the moment. Gesture interfaces are slowly but surely supplanting AR in tech headlines, because all the nerds want to be like Tom Cruise in 'Minority Report.' Hey, we can't argue with that. But the additional layer of interactivity that AR provides looks kind of facile compared to interacting with digital "objects" in real, 3-D space.

Now Robert Wang, a graduate student at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, along with associate professor Jovan Popović, have developed the most colorful gesture technology we've seen to date: a Lycra glove that looks like it was eBay'd straight out of the costume department for 1989's 'Gleaming The Cube.' Oh, and it only costs about $1.

As opposed to older gesture interfaces -- like those that use sensors attached to the user's fingertips -- Wang and Popović's glove provides a full model of the user's hand for the computer (and attached webcam), with relatively little lag time between movement and reaction. "We get how your fingers are flexing," says Wang. Check out a video demo of the interface below.

The glove went through several iterations before Wang and Popović settled on a design. Currently, the glove is made up of 20 irregular patches in 10 different colors. The colors were chosen based on their ability to be distinguished from one another -- and background objects. Call it ugly as sin or a Marc Jacobs cast-off, but the glove re-envisions the concept of gesture interface by adding the the color patches' totally tubular data -- a technique that's never been tried before.

Obviously, this will be great for gaming once it eventually gets implemented on a mass scale. But gesture interfaces, especially as refined as this, are perfect for design, architecture and even medical applications. We like where this is headed, but we're also interested in the Fall/Winter colors. Let us know when you move to mauves. [From: MIT]

Tags: ar, augmented reality, AugmentedReality, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, ComputerScienceAndArtificialIntelligenceLaboratory, gesture, Gesture Control, Gesture recognition, GestureControl, GestureRecognition, glove, Jovan Popović, JovanPopović, MIT, robert wang, RobertWang, top

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