Hasta La Gadget!

Hacking Kinect might get you access to an audible air guitar, but Stephane Berscot can do you one better — tweaking the pitch of a tangible axe via Leap Motion’s virtual work space. Berscot configured a Leap tweak his guitar’s pitch based on the instrument’s position over the device. That’s not all, either, the makeshift MIDI controller also functions as a keyboard equalizer and a set of functional air drums. Combining all three tricks together scored Berscot a pretty mean demo track, but it’s apparently a lot harder than it looks. “It wasn’t easy to play drums with it,” he said, explaining how he had to detect beats based tracking the upward and downward velocity of the drumstick. “My method is pretty basic and still needs some work.” Even so, the demo definitely shows the device’s potential. Skip on past the break to see Berscot kick out the jams.

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Leap Motion‘s ultra-precise Controller will launch at Best Buy exclusively, the company has announced, with pre-orders of the motion-tracking dongle kicking off in February. Set to go on sale both in Best Buy stores and through the retailer’s site – in addition to Leap Motion’s own preorders – the 3-inch long gadget hooks up to your computer via USB, and can track the movements of up to ten individual fingers around it.

In fact, Leap Motion’s technology can not only track ten fingers, but with an accuracy of up to 1/100th of a millimeter. There’s no visible delay in the tracking either, the company says, thanks to a 290fps capture rate, and the area of sensitivity covers 150-degrees.

Of course, hardware is only half of the equation, and so Leap Motion has been working on cultivating the developer scene so that there’s sufficient software to make owning the controller itself worthwhile. 12,000 free developer units have already been seeded, with applications in gaming, computer-aided design, augmented reality, and more.

Leap Motion walkthrough:

Earlier this month, Leap Motion announced a deal with ASUS to instill select future PCs from the company with integrated motion-control tracking. This new deal with Best Buy will mean even those without a new ASUS PC will be able to join in, though the retailer will only be the exclusive North American sales partner.

Those outside of the US and Canada can order direct from the manufacturer, with the controller varying in price depending on your country. In the US, it’s $69.99 before shipping; for a UK delivery, for instance, that rises to $83.99 before shipping. Deliveries are expected early this year.

Leap Motion inks Best Buy exclusive for motion-tracking dongle is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week we got the opportunity to take a peek at the newest Moen water distribution system for your sink, the MotionSense Touch-Free faucet. Moen’s own Maribeth Kwasniewski showed this system off with us at ShowStoppers during CES 2013, revealing the multiple ways you’re able to activate it when you get it for yourself in the very near future. The first of these is the Wave Sensor – that black dot at the top of the neck of the faucet, able to toggle the water’s flow when you move your hand over or across it.

What this wave sensor being able to “toggle” means here is that if you wave your hand over the faucet once, the water turns on, if you wave your hand over it again, the water turns off. Whichever state the water flow is in when you wave your hand over it, it’ll be the opposite when you’ve waved. If you wave once to turn the water off and walk away, the water will automatically shut off in 2 minutes.

Next is the Ready Sensor, this feature turning the water flow on when you place your hands under the faucet. This works like the sensor you’ll see it massive amounts of bathrooms in restaurants, hotels, and everywhere in between right this minute. The third way to work with this faucet is with its one handle – pull the handle out and it turns on, pull back or push forward and the water becomes hot or cold.

As for the temperature of the water when you use one of the sensors: that’s controlled by a control box that you set (under the deck, aka under your countertop) when you first install the faucet. You can set and re-set this controlled temperature but can also control the temperature above the deck with the handle as described above. This system sticks to the controlled temperature you’ve set whenever you initiate the flow of water with one of the two sensors.

This faucet starts at $399 USD and is available right this minute from a variety of retailers and online (if you know where to look). Have a peek at the rest of our CES 2013 coverage in our giant CES hub or check just the ShowStoppers hands-on posts in our ShowStoppers 2013 tag portal – it’s all good!

Moen MotionSense Touch-Free Faucet hands-on is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

I’ve seen some unusual gadgets over the years, but the iKazoo might be one of the most offbeat, yet intriguing devices I’ve seen in a while.

Designed by ogaco, the iKazoo is first and foremost a wireless controller which can be used for playing music with your iOS or Android device. It’s got a lip sensor, a full chromatic keyboard and even a flute built into it. But the device aspires to be much more than a virtual wind instrument, as it can not only detect touch and breath, but movement. This opens the controller up to other sorts of interactions, such as using it as a paintbrush, on-screen navigation or for controlling games.

When used for gaming, it can be used as a sort of joystick, or also as a unique control method for games that involve balancing objects, or spinning a wheel. Its makers envision a plethora of other uses ranging from a motion control for golf and tennis games to a personal fitness tracker to a voice recorder and even as a karaoke machine.

Inside the stick-like iKazoo is a sophisticated set of circuits including an Ardiuno compatible microcontroller, Bluetooth wireless networking, optical, shock and motion sensors, as well as a microphone, multitouch sensor, RGB LEDs and even a headphone jack. It sounds sort of like a Wii Remote on steroids.

While the promotional video for the iKazoo is a bit silly at times (gotta love the part with the guy looking through the microscope,) I can really see potential here. A wireless controller with so much functionality along with an Open Source development platform could be a dream for hackers and tinkerers, much like the Wii-mote and Kinect have been. At this point it appears that the iKazoo is in the prototype stages, but the company is already registering interest for preorders for the strange little gadget.

A team led by researchers at Microsoft’s UK-based R&D lab has crafted a system that tracks the full 3D pose of a user’s hand without the need for a pesky glove. Dubbed Digits, the Kinect-inspired rig latches onto a user’s wrist and utilizes a diffuse infrared light, IR laser, camera and inertial measurement unit to track fingertips and just five key points of a hand. Leveraging a pair of mathematical models developed in-house after studying the mechanics of the human hand, the group uses the captured data to extrapolate the position of a user’s paw. The team envisions the solution as a supplement to touch-based interfaces, a method for eyes-free control of mobile devices and as a gaming controller that could work in conjunction with Kinect or similar systems. In its current state, the device is composed of off-the-shelf parts and needs to be tethered to a laptop, but the ultimate goal is to create a mobile, self contained unit the size of a wrist watch. Hit the break to catch a video of the setup in action or tap the second source link below for more details in the group’s academic paper.

Continue reading Microsoft Research crafts wrist-worn device that tracks hand gestures in 3D space (video)

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Microsoft Research crafts wrist-worn device that tracks hand gestures in 3D space (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 09 Oct 2012 09:50:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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