A Nice Gesture by Jeroen Arendsen

Various enterprises and personal interests, such as Man-Machine Interaction (MMI), gesture studies, signs, language, social robotics, healthcare, innovation, music, publications, etc.

Author: Jeroen Page 12 of 51

What’s going on at the GW2009

By

On February 26, 2009

In Academia

Hello, dear reader. Did you know there is an interesting gesture conference going on at the moment? Or are you in fact reading this blog from the very ‘plenarsaal’ in Bielefeld’s ZiF, this year’s home of the Gesture Workshop (for previous occasions of the workshop, see here), where I am typing this blog entry? It could be, because all around me I see people who are interested in gesture and sign language using their laptops while the discussions are going on.

It’s quite a stimulating little workshop 🙂

At the moment Kirsten Bergman is taking questions from Jan Peter de Ruiter and Asli Özyürek about how she and her colleague Stefan Kopp implemented their theories about gesture and speech into an Embodied Conversational Agent (ECA). De Ruiter just complimented her with the ‘best model of gesture production he has seen so far’, and it is indeed quite an impressive and comprehensive treatment of gesture and speech synthesis.

Time for a coffee now, but I will be posting some entries in the coming days about the conference, highlighting stuff that I find to be particularly interesting. If you couldn’t make it but are interested then check back regularly to get a bit of the flavor of the workshop.

Figaro the lawn-barber

By

On February 5, 2009

In YouTube Faves

Six legged (hexapod) autonomous mini lawn-mower robot.

I came across this video, which explains itself, and found it a wonderful idea well presented. And to add my own ideas and make a link to gestures: Imagine that this robot automatically comes up with patterns or ‘crop circles’ under the influence of his environment.

Perhaps it can be moody on a rainy day, like Hall Object (here) and express this in a ‘moody’ pattern. Or perhaps it can first sense the shape of your lawn and use aesthetic guidelines or Gestalt principles to come up with a beautiful pattern. Maybe it could test the quality of the grass and the soil in each area of the lawn and provide his feedback in his pattern.

I would argue that Figaro would then be ‘gesturing’, because I feel that all types of sketching can be considered forms of gesture (here). It’s just that the result of the action transmits the message instead of the action itself. In a very real way, Figaro would be communicating and his patterns would be gestures, intended to communicate.

Behold, (the idea of) an imaginary lawn artist!

Milford Go-Robo Femisapiens

By

On January 15, 2009

In Robots

Milford School pupils were inspired by ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ to design costumes for Femisapiens and then program dance routines for them using Go-Robo. Facilities supplied by eLC South Nottingham.

Will this be the future of girlie robots? Femisapien is definitely a cute robot from Wowwee with its endearing kisses (here). And with a little software and some creativity you can use Femisapien as your Barbie dressup doll 🙂

The used Go-Robo software appears to be quite similar to the Robodance software.

Read first on: Robots Dreams.

Sixense TrueMotion Presentation at NVISION08 – Highlights

By

On January 12, 2009

In Gesture Recognition, YouTube Faves

Highlights of the Sixense TrueMotion presentation at NVISION08. See the full length videos for more information.

Hmm, it looks quite good, but is it essentially different from the Nintendo Wii? However finegrained the input or robust the sensor mechanisms, there will always remain a matching process between the gestures (the physical actions) and your virtual actions in the game. And that is something you need to learn for every game. In fact, this learning process is a large part of the gaming experience, in my opinion. So, I am not sure that this is actually better than the Wii. But, if they can actually capitalise on their ‘far more accurate gesture-control system’ and create a good gaming and learning experience with it (improving your ‘golf gesture’ over the course of time, for example) then I believe it will succeed.

Sixense shows off its magnet-based gesture control system for games

By

On January 12, 2009

In Gesture Recognition, YouTube Faves

Jeff Bellinghausen of Sixense shows a magnet-based gesture control system . It works for the personal computer and lets you have a far more accurate gesture-control system in a game compared to the Nintendo Wii

Hitachi shows off Canesta’s 3-D depth camera for a gesture-controlled TV

By

On January 12, 2009

In Gesture Recognition, YouTube Faves

Canesta showed off a demo at the International Consumer Electronics show in Hitachi’s booth. Basically, the 3-D depth camera can detect your movements. Hitachi used this system to create a gesture-controlled TV. You don’t need a remote control.

Demo of Orange Vallee’s gesture-controlled TV, with Softkinetics technology

By

On January 12, 2009

In Gesture Recognition, YouTube Faves

This video from the 2009 International Consumer Electronics Show shows how you can control your TV using hand gestures that are detected by the 3-D camera atop the TV. Softkinetics does the software, a Swiss company does the depth camera, and Orange Vallee will deploy it in its interactive TV network

Panasonic EZ Touch Remote – Best Of Show at CEATEC 2008

By

On January 11, 2009

In Gesture Recognition, YouTube Faves

Best Of Show Award & Best UI design at CEATEC 2008.

New remote controller concept from Panasonic R&D (San Jose Lab) featuring a dual click-pad, hand detection and on-screen user interface.

UI snapshots and award ceremony at CEATEC 2008.

This is again, like the Hitachi TV (here), a very good example of good gesture recognition combined with excellent interaction design and a good Graphical User Interface (GUI). The three elements need to be combined to get the right kind of gestural interaction, it would seem. On the iPhone it works that way as well: good touch gesture recognition, good interaction design (the way the gestures translate to computer actions) and a good GUI (which invites or ‘affords’ the right sort of gestures).

CEATEC JAPAN 2008: HITACHI Gesture operation TV

By

On January 9, 2009

In Gesture Recognition, YouTube Faves

RBB TODAY
http://www.rbbtoday.com/news/feature/ceatec2008/ 

This looks like it is actually heading in the right direction. The gestures appear well implemented, as could be expected from the boys of GestureTek. And the use of the Canesta Vision chips (more here) appears to be very effective as well. There is a decent review of this Hitachi TV over here at Take a Plunge…

The TV uses single-chip-based 3-D sensors provided by Canesta and the software created by GestureTek.

The Canesta’s sensors in the TV will collect a 3-D image of everything in the room. This 3-D technology helps it to recognize your hand from a printed hand on your t shirt or in any other object in the room. It recognizes different people and your hand when you stick out your hand for controlling the TV.

The gestures are simple and culturally sensitive. Gesturetek the software makes it easier for the users to control the TV according to their movements. You will also have alternate methods to control the TV.

A user of the new Hitachi TV set can get the control bar with just a wave of the hand
Spin the wrist – activate scroll wheel
Swipe left or right – browse options
Two hands – switch to a different function

As you can see in this next video, they created a wonderful GUI, an interface to go with the gestures. You are not left alone gesturing in thin air, no, you get good feedback on the screen about your gestures. This greatly resembles the old Playstation EyeToy (see here), also made by GestureTek.

Ron Jans gives Referee a Badly Camouflaged Finger

By

On January 9, 2009

In Insults and Vulgarity, YouTube Faves

Ron Jans steekt middelvinger op. Dit gebeurde in de wedstrijd tegen Heerenveen.

And we have another case of a football coach giving the finger to the referee (see here and here for similar cases). The KNVB (the Dutch football organisation) is investigating the case (here). Undoubtedly, there will be some sort of reprimand or fine. But Jans has a lot of credit with the right people, so it will all blow over very rapidly. He has, after all, already apologised (here).

The funny thing about this case of flipping the bird is the way in which Jans tries to camouflage his insult. He follows it with some ‘I need to get warm’ arm flappings. Sadly, people are excellent at spotting gestures in a continuous stream of movement. Nobody will have had any trouble in seeing the finger. Movements that precede or follow a gesture do not hamper the perception of the gesture (see my own research on this, for example), nor can they serve as an effective cause for denial. Jans did not try to deny it and that would have been ridiculous.

Next time, Jans could take a hint from Jens Lehmann, who used a perfect finger camouflage and was able to deny it succesfully, while achieving his target.

Page 12 of 51

Previous

Next

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén