A computer system that understands and responds to human gestures

One major difference between humans and computers has been the fact that humans use gestures and body movement to interact, while computers don’t. However this disparity no more exists, with this newly developed computer system designed by Christian Holz from Germany and Andy Wilson from Microsoft Research in Redmond, Washington. The system, dubbed Data Miming is capable of recognizing the objects through our gestures, that without forcing a user to memorise a "vocabulary" of specific movements, as in most other motion sensing devices.

Computers understand hand-waving

Using the motion-capture camera Microsoft Kinect, Data Miming captures a 3D representation of our hand movements. With the help of the voxels or pixels, the gestures of the user can be grasped which is thereby compared with a database of the objects present in the system in a voxel form, so that the suitable one can be chosen.

While designing the system, Holz and Wilson had devised a few tests in order to keep a check if the system works or not. However, the system recognized 98% of the desired object, which selected it in the top three matches. The project was also presented at the CHI 2011 meeting in Vancouver, Canada, in the month of May.

According to Holz, computers should possess the quality of recognizing the motions like humans, now that they have become a prime necessity of us and no more a luxury. The invention of Data Miming would make it easier for us to converse virtually. Moreover, it will prove beneficial while online shopping, as the system will understand your desired product from the way you describe it, just like you do to the shopkeeper.

Via: NewScientist