The Gesture Pendant
allows ordinary household devices to be controlled, literally,
with the wave of a hand. The user wears a small pendant that contains
a wireless camera. The user makes gestures in front of the pendant
that control anything from a home theater system, to lighting,
to the kitchen sink. Therefore, hard to use, hard to understand
remotes can be replaced with simple hand gestures. The pendant
system can also analyze the user's movement as he/she makes gestures.
This means that the system can look for loss of motor skill or
tremors in the hand that might indicate the onset of illness or
problems with medication. It can also observe daily activities
to determine, for example, if a person has been eating regularly
and moving around. This more advanced monitoring would aid elderly
or disabled persons, who would also benefit from this interface
that requires less dexterity, memory, and eyesight than traditional
remote controls. Therefore, the Gesture Pendant can be used by
healthy people who desire a better interface to home theater and
automation systems, or it can be used in more advanced ways to
help elderly and disabled users achieve more independence in their
homes. The Gesture Pendant project is a collaboration between the
College of Computing’s Contextual Computing Group and IMTC.
click on the thumbnail below for a larger view (JPG: 640 x 480)
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photo of a Gesture Pendant prototype
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