
Gmail Motion April Fools' gag inevitably turned into reality using Kinect - stevederico
http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/02/gmail-motion-april-fools-gag-inevitably-turned-into-reality-usi/
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Tycho
The sad thing is, I saw Google Motion appear in my Gmail toolstrip, but I
didn't even think about April fools, I just thought 'oh, _great_ , another
half-baked wannabe social media experiment masquerading as a feature from
Google (the email and search company)' and didn't bother clicking it.

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edanm
Watching the "joke" made me realize something - there's a chance that, in the
future, a lot of communication with computers will be done using sign
language.

After all, most people (rightly) assume that pretty soon, voice recognition
will work well enough that you'll be able to dictate everything to your
computer, making keyboards partially obsolete (especially for the majority of
users).

But everyone also correctly thinks that there is one big problem with voice-
driven computers - they won't work well with many people in the room at the
same time. Imagine a cubicle environment in which everyone needs to talk to
their computers.

Motion-detection, coupled with sign language, is a pretty logical next step.

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rimantas
I cannot imagine why would I choose to use voice recognition even if I am
alone with computer.

~~~
kabdib
In Netflix, today: "Xbox, pause." (handle phone call). "Xbox, play."

For simple commands, it's pretty neat.

"Xbox, order pizza and find a movie that doesn't suck" is probably a few years
off :-)

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jrockway
If only there was a small keyboard with a limited set of buttons that could be
pressed to command consumer electronics devices. I would call it ... a "remote
control".

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kabdib
On a random remote I just picked up, I see buttons labeled: Menu, Top Menu,
Configure, Category, Setup, Option, two Enter buttons, two Mute buttons,
several banks of numeric entry 0-9, two channel changers, two volume changers,
three different power buttons, two mutes, and four ways to change inputs.

I would much rather do this:

"Computer, show me some God damned teevee."

"Yes, boss."

I think it's likely we'll get decent voice-and-intent recognition before the
remote control makers are brought, well, under control. Right now your average
remote is like flying a fapping 747.

[I'm aware of the Apple remote. It seems cool, but I haven't used one.]

~~~
nitrogen
Remote controls and home automation are a space that many a geek has tried to
conquer with good code and proper UI design principles. Give it some time;
it'll happen. Voice control will have its place, but I'm mostly convinced
that, for people with one good hand, well-designed physical interfaces will
always be better for most things.

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incomethax
Clickable link to the project website:
<http://projects.ict.usc.edu/mxr/faast/>

This makes me want to get a kinect to play around with.

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troymc
I knew Gmail Motion was an April Fools gag --- that's what the link sending me
there said, but...

It's actually a good idea --- for certain users. In particular, there are many
people who use sign language to communicate. For those who sign, what could be
more natural than controlling Gmail via sign? And why stop at Gmail?

Further reading: <http://cad.ca/en/issues/telecommunications.asp>

~~~
ernestipark
I'm taking a multimodal user interfaces course, and for our final project my
partner and I discussed a gesture based interface for GMail on March 31. 10
hours later I saw GMail Motion. Granted, we weren't thinking quite the gesture
set Google had in mind, but similar idea.

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defrost
Real time hand sign recognition had a published solution in 2005 (
<http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1107692> "an automatic Australian sign
language (Auslan) recognition system, which tracks multiple target objects
(the face and hands) throughout an image sequence and extracts features for
the recognition of sign phrases. ") after about 10 to 15 years of prior work
(eg: _Hand movement classification using an adaptive fuzzy expert system_
-[https://www.socrates.uwa.edu.au/Pub/PubDetailView.aspx?Publi...](https://www.socrates.uwa.edu.au/Pub/PubDetailView.aspx?PublicationID=429191)
) - 1996).

It's interesting that this work flowed out of research and development in
sheep shearing robotics (
[http://school.mech.uwa.edu.au/~jamest/shearmagic/autoshear.h...](http://school.mech.uwa.edu.au/~jamest/shearmagic/autoshear.html)
) from the late 1970s / early 1980s.

~~~
Kliment
All the tools needed to build this are now built into OpenCV (and likely other
similar libs, but OpenCV is what I know) so it's really a matter of a day or
two to implement this now. I personally find this amazing. The major
difference, I think, between today and 2005 is that today this is doable on
your average netbook as someone's weekend project.

~~~
nitrogen
Is there a recommended OpenCV book or website for the experienced hacker whose
career focus has not been computer vision who wants to assemble some of those
tools into a larger product?

~~~
Kliment
Why yes there is. The OpenCV book, from Oreilly. It's excellent for getting to
know the library more deeply.

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hunterp
I remember how xenophobic and arrogant the Google organization was in the
early days when it was a hot company. Well they are definitely still arrogant,
wasting time on a video like this when the technology to actually do it is not
really that difficult.

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daimyoyo
Has anyone combined the Kinect with iOS yet? That plus the HDMI out from the
new iPad to a big screen tv would equal epicness on an unprecedented scale. In
fact, I'd actually pay more for that than I did for the iPad itself. Get to
work, Apple.

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lukifer
I would bet any amount of money that there are iPad prototypes in R&D that use
2 or 4 front-facing cameras.

~~~
jrockway
I would bet $10 that there aren't.

~~~
kgermino
I would bet $100 neither of you have any way to know. :)

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motters
All joking aside, for some users with disabilities this sort of gesture based
interface could be really useful.

My prediction is that gesture interfaces are going to be used for some basic
things, but that most interactions with computers will remain fairly
conventional. If you do a time and motion study, the way people currently
interact via keyboards, mice and touch screens is pretty efficient. Even with
augmented reality, I expect that users will still be tapping on virtual
keyboards.

~~~
lazerwalker
Other than someone with serious finger/hand issues, I'm having a hard time
imagining a disability that would prohibit someone from using a mouse/keyboard
as input but would leave them able to use full-body gestures.

~~~
anasol
It is not necessarily a bad idea, and it would not have to be restrained to
people with disabilities. The way Google presented the idea was fun but it did
make some good sense: it would make us, couch potatoes "have to" move.

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random42
That was really fast. I feel pretty incompetent (which in all likelihood, may
not be far from true, despite what my client/managers say).

Good job!

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Joshim5
Just as @comex anticipated....

@comex: "I give it 12 hours until someone makes Gmail Motion for real using
the Kinect."

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pcanella
I wish ThinkGeek would make the Apple Store Playmobil set :(

