MURATA/Elliptic Labs Ultrasound Gesture Control

[CEATEC 2013] I still remember how Nintendo was ridiculed by different segments of the gaming community when they first released the Nintendo Wii which sports motion control using a nunchuk as well as the Wiimote. The strange thing was, Sony introduced subtle changes to their Sixaxis controller afterwards, while Microsoft took things further with their Kinect system where your entire body ended up as the game controller itself. Nintendo was justified in their innovation, and here we are with something that might represent the next level – the MURATA/Elliptic Labs Ultrasound Gesture Control.

Basically, it is able to perceive depth – or the Z-axis, if you will. Whenever your hand goes closer to the display, the “ball” will become larger to show just how near it is, and vice versa. It is even able to detect your hand when it beyond the border of the display, while slicing your hand across will result in the “ball” being depicted as a thinly stretched graphic, showing just how sensitive it is. In the demonstration, the MURATA/Elliptic Labs Ultrasound Gesture Control showed how one is able to manipulate the Windows 8 environment as well as a browser using nothing but gesture controls. There is no gesture to perform pinch-to-zoom at the moment, but I guess it is just a simple matter of time. Not only that, the entire shebang consumes very little juice, so it is just a matter of time before we could see it implemented in future devices – and it could very well end up to be an extremely popular feature down the road.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: CEATEC, ceatec 2013