Canesta, a provider of electronic perception technology for touch-free gesture recognition and advanced automotive safety, recently announced that touch-free gesture control products will effect the digital living room.

 

Touch-free gesture control products enable users of a television or personal computer to control the device with a wave of the hand. This will increase revenues and ensure a greater market share to those who move into this space as pioneers.

 

Gesture controls have the potential to change the way TV’s PC’S and many other devices are used. The 3-D sensors that are at the core of this technology determine the distance from the sensor to every feature that is viewed by the sensor and then use that information to discriminate between objects, individuals, movements, hand gestures, practically duping the processes performed by the human eyes and brain.  

 

Such gestural interfaces have already enabled iPhone (News - Alert) (Apple) and Wii (Nintendo gaming console) to stand out from the crowd and dominate their product categories. \

 

 This new momentum could carry over to television and personal computers and lead to a lot of new innovations in the control of these electronic devices in the digital home.

 

"It's sort of like what happened with the Apple (News - Alert) iPhone. Here you have an entirely new entrant to the mobile phone business, with its 1001  SKU’s (Stock Keeping Units), launch yet another device - at a premium price point no less - and in only one year divert billions of consumer dollars right into Apple's pocket," said Jim Spare Chief Executive Officer of Canesta. 

 

Hitachi demonstrated prototypes of a gesture controlled television in the Winter Consumer Electronics Show and this demonstration caused excitement among the people attending the show as well as caused media observers to comment that this could change the digital living room in the future.

 

The Hitachi (News - Alert) demo was enabled by a 3-D sensor chip made at a low cost by Canesta. This concept was first shown in the film “Minority Report” by Steven Spielberg and has since shown up quite often in other areas as well.