> You’ve got to hand it to them
- 18 Jul 07, 10:54 AM
We’ve looked at a few gadgets on Access 2.0 to make life easier and better, from mp3 players through to eye-tracking software to replace the computer mouse. This time though we’re looking at – your hands.
Australian engineers, Dr Prashan Premaratne and Quang Nguyen, have developed a system that can activate a variety of electronic items with a gesture of the hand. Want to start your TV? Make a fist. Want to change the channel? Give it the thumbs up. A small camera in a control box records hand gestures which it then converts into instructions that the TV can understand. I don’t suppose you’ll be able to customise your hand signals, but I can think of a few good ones I’d like to use when watching events in the House of Commons on BBC Parliament.
Apparently, it is sophisticated enough to distinguish between accidental gestures and deliberate instructions. You won’t have to worry about unexpectedly channel hopping if you get over excited when your favourite team scores in the big match.
It has obvious attractions for a lot of people. Someone who is visually impaired wouldn’t have to worry about small, fiddly and often smooth buttons on a remote control. Someone who has arthritis, for example, will also find this an attractive system. And if you have a big arse like mine, you tend to do less damage sitting on your hands than the remote.
Whether you like this system or not, it is still quite exciting to see another example of universal design. New technologies are encouraging people to think about things in new and more inclusive ways. And that has to be a good thing.
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