Hasta La Gadget!

Have you always dreamed of controlling your TV by flailing in the next room? Researchers at the University of Washington have just the system for you: WiSee, a gesture-recognition interface that uses WiFi to control things like sound systems and temperature settings. Since WiFi signals are capable of passing through walls, WiSee can detect gestures made from neighboring rooms, breaking free from the line-of-sight method relied on by devices like Kinect and Leap Motion. Unlike those two, WiSee doesn’t require an additional sensor; the software can theoretically be used with any WiFi-connected device and a router with multiple antennae to detect Doppler shifts created by movement. The prototype was tested in both an office environment and a two-bedroom apartment, and the team reported a 94% accuracy with a set of nine distinct gestures. If you watch the video, embedded after the break, you’ll notice that each user performs an identifying motion prior to the control gesture. It’s a trick the team picked up from studying Kinect’s solution for distinguishing between specific individuals in crowded rooms. Intrigued? Head over to the source link to read the report in full.

Filed under: Peripherals

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Via: The Verge

Source: University of Washington

Things we expected to see at the world’s premier computer show: mainstream notebooks, gaming notebooks, thin notebooks (“pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp“), maybe even a tablet or two. But a desk lamp? Not so much. And yet, that might be the most memorable thing Gigaybte is showing here at Computex. The Smart Lamp is, as you’d expect, a proper light, one you can use on four different brightness settings. But it also doubles as a laptop hub, with a DVD player built into the base, along with a handful of other ports. These include two USB sockets, dual headphone / earphone jacks and an SD reader.

It’s a neat idea, to be sure — who doesn’t love two-in-one devices – but considering it’s supposed to supplement the ports normally found on Ultrabooks, it seems to be missing quite a few big ones. Why not throw in an HDMI port, or some other kind of display output? Ooh, or how about an Ethernet jack? Or a DVD drive that can burn discs in addition to play them? Anyway, you can color us slightly disappointed after having gotten an up-close look, even if the concept itself deserves an ‘A’ for creativity. No word yet on how much this will cost, when it will go on sale or in which countries it will be available. Until then, check out the walk-through video below — not that this thing needs much further explanation.

Filed under: Peripherals

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At Intel’s Computex keynote earlier today, the chip maker teased that it expects embedded 3D depth cameras to arrive on devices in the second half of 2014. Luckily, we got an exclusive early taste of the technology shortly after the event, courtesy of SoftKinetic. This Belgian company not only licenses its close-range gesture tracking middleware to Intel, but it also manufactures time-of-flight 3D depth cameras — including Creative’s upcoming Senz3D — in partnership with South Korea-based Namuga. Read on to see how we coped with this futuristic piece of kit, plus we have a video ready for your amusement.

Filed under: Peripherals, Intel

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ASUS’ ROG presentation here at Computex wasn’t all meaty graphic powerhouses — it also displayed a new mechanical keyboard for discerning typists gamers, albeit underneath a piece of black cloth. We were told that the temporarily named “Armor Keyboard” wasn’t quite ready to show off its design just yet, but when it comes out towards the end of Q3 this year it will, surprisingly, boast the title of ASUS’ first in-house-designed mechanical gaming keyboard. As you’d expect, this backlit device will feature “ultra-responsive” mechanical key switches, as well as dedicated media and programmable hot keys located along the periphery. We’ll be keeping an eye out for more information about it later this year, naturally.

Richard Lai contributed to this report.

Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Peripherals, ASUS

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Microsoft’s Xbox spokesman Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb is giving fans a chance to take a very early hands-on look at the Xbox One’s new gamepad next week. On Monday June 10th, just a day before the official kickoff of E3, Hryb is taking to Microsoft’s Century City company store and allotting a solid 90 minutes for controller touching, as well as ogling of the new box and its always-on Kinect. Wouldn’t you know it, that’s right during Sony’s PlayStation 4 press conference!

As the event is both free and full of loosed next-gen hardware, Hryb suggests showing up well ahead of time — we’ll be on-hand, snapping your picture and distributing high fives. He also teases, “one or two other surprises” as well, which we’re hoping isn’t a free Kin for every person who gets in.

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals, Software, HD, Microsoft

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Source: Major Nelson