XTR And TI Partner On Next-Gen Touchless Gesture Control Engine Optimized For OMAP

Few will argue that gesture controls on touchscreen devices is a bad thing. The only real downside to being able to swipe your finger across the screen of your MP3 player or your computer is that you end up with fingerprints and smears all over the screen. A company called Extreme Reality (XTR) has teamed up with Texas instruments to develop a next generation gesture control technology that is optimized for OMAP that doesn't require the user to actually touch the screen.

The gestures are viewed by the camera of the device and then convert the gestures into actions on the screen. Rather than swiping a finger across the screen the user would just swipe a finger in the air above the screen and the gesture would be recognized. The control system uses a single low-resolution camera like the ones used in devices for video conferencing already.

The system is able to recognize single or multiple finger gestures with point, click, drag, scroll, zoom, and rotate. Using the TI and XTR solution the users of a smartphone coupled control the device while walking, driving, or control a smartphone connected to their TV from across the room. When we can expect this sort of device to hit the market is unknown.