Kinect-style motion tracking for smartphones & tablets promises Crunchfish [Video]
Kinect-style motion recognition on mobile devices like tablets and smartphones could arrive sooner – and cheaper – than expected, with software developers Crunchfish coming up with a system that can track 3D movements with a single front-facing camera. Working even in low-light conditions, the Crunchfish tech can track individual finger movement, together with click, drag and scroll without any contact with the device itself.Video demo after the cut
No additional hardware is required, beyond a suitable camera, and the company also reckons it could be used in notebooks and PCs. Crunchfish intend to incorporate the tech into their existing 3D rendering engine, and considering they offer it for both Android and iOS – and both platforms are seeing increasing prevalence of front-facing cameras – that could mean all manner of apps appearing that track movement not touch.
Press Release:
Crunchfish introduce a new UI motion technology for mobile and PC market
Crunchfish AB – Feb 25, 2011 14:55 CETMalmö 2011-02-25
Crunchfish, the innovation company releases a new well working motion recognition technology for mobile devices, Pads and PC's.
The Solution can replace touch screen interaction with movement detection only.
The device will need a camera giving the user the opportunity to click, drag and drop and scroll by doing finger movements in front of the camera.
Touch screens has been around for as long as we can remember so Crunchfish decided it was time for the next step in user interaction.
Crunchfish has prototyped its latest cell phone innovation making it possible for users to control their user interface on mobile phones using finger gestures in the air.
Sure, now you do not have to clean your screen from fatty spots from your fingers. But the real advantage is 3D control. What the heck does that mean?
Since the controller responds to your fingers' position in real space and are not confined to a flat 2D screen anymore, the user can control graphical objects in 3 dimensions.
The applications are endless, from chemical molecule manipulations to interaction with 3D avatar characters.
And the really cool thing is that this comes with no additional hardware need – the solution uses the existing front cam.
A prototype has been showcased in Crunchfish's research lab.
The next step of the minority report is to integrate the gesture control with Crunchfish's existing 3D rendering engine for cell phones.
Handset manufacturers can enable new games and UI interaction with 3rd part developers.
You guest it: It also work without any additional hardware.