While there’s constant speculation over Microsoft’s plans for Kinect-equipped laptops, it appears the company is working on some new ways of bringing motion control to existing and new laptops. Microsoft Research has created a new “SoundWave” technology that utilizes the Doppler effect to detect gestures. The SoundWave project uses a microphone and speaker to sense the frequency change of a sound wave by outputting inaudible sounds and measuring their change in frequency as a hand gesture is used.
Microsoft creates Kinect-like motion control for laptops using sound waves
Microsoft Research is demonstrating a Kinect-like motion control for laptops using sound waves.
Microsoft Research is demonstrating a Kinect-like motion control for laptops using sound waves.
is a senior correspondent and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years.
The result is an array of gestures that can be activated in a similar way to Microsoft's Kinect technology, even if audio is playing from a laptop or there's a lot of background noise. Laptop users can use up and down gestures to scroll through documents or websites, and there's also a left and right swipe gesture that works well enough to use in picture navigation software. One particular useful implementation is the ability to detect when a user steps away from a machine, Microsoft demonstrates this, in the video below, as a way to automatically lock a workstation when it's unused. While this won't be available mainstream anytime soon, it does demonstrate how gestures could be a big part of our interaction with existing and future computers in the years ahead.
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