Gesture recognition lets you control your innovative presentation without touching a remote control or even the screen of your smartphone or tablet! Without getting too technical, your hand or body motion is detected by a camera and an action occurs. For example, wave-o-rama is an iOS photo album app that moves from one photo to the next when you wave your hand in front of the iPad screen.
We see amazing possibilities for presentations with the Leap Motion Controller. For less than $100, you add gesture control to your Mac or Windows PC. You can paint, sculpt, turn pages, even rotate three-dimensional objects with your hands.
Rather than holding a prototype in your hands, which makes it hard to see, you can show the image on the screen and rotate it with hand gestures, as if you were holding it. The audience sees the rotating figure but not your hands.
Imagine you want to talk about your company’s state-of-the-art circuit board, which you want to convince a potential client to purchase to control a manufacturing device he’s developing. Instead of holding up a circuit board, you bring up a 3-D model on the screen of your computer.
The computer is connected to a projection system, and the Leap Motion Controller is connected to your computer. Using your hands, you rotate the virtual circuit board to show the thinness, conductive tracks and pads.
Then virtually insert the circuit board into a 3-D image of the manufacturing device, showing how it takes up less room than the competitor’s circuit board, which means more flexibility in the design of their new device.
Announcements of new gesture-control products arrive almost daily. There seems to be a particular trend for wearables, objects you put on such as clothes or jewelry that incorporate gesture control. Here are just a few of the latest products:
The Myo gesture control armband from Thalmic, scheduled to ship in 2014 for $149, offers full control of your digital and remotely controlled devices.
Put on a pair of DrumPants and then slap your knees to clang a cymbal or tap your toe to add a kick drum. Music aside, DrumPants can be used to control your slideshows, just tap your belly to bring up the next slide.
Step aside smart watches, Ring from Logbar manages gesture control, takes your messages when you draw letters in the air, and connects to other devices to control them remotely.
A beta product that could be interesting is Mauz from SpiceBox Labs, an adapter that plugs into an iPhone and turns it into a gesture-controlled mouse that commands your computer.
Dizmo a combination of digital gizmo, turns touch-screen surfaces into infinite work boards. Digital objects, for example spreadsheet apps or appointments on a calendar app, appear on the surface and you write on, resize, and move them around. Dizmo would be an amazing addition to a traditional presentation or a team meeting.