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3D gesture-recognition chip for smartwatches and HMDs
Researchers at the University of California at Berkeley and Davis are developing a chip that uses ultrasound waves to detect gestures. The chip is ideally suited to being used in wearable gadgets because of its convenience and low power consumption. Who wants to mess with a two inch smartwatch display anyhow.
Microsoft Kinect is an optical 3D processor for gesture recognition. It's big and uses a lot of power. It can't work in sunlight and is restricted in its general use. So, theoretically, these types of devices are not going to find widespread use in low power, small form factor devices including smartphones and tablets. The problem is almost insurmountable for smartwatches that have even a smaller footprint than phones, for example.
Richard Przybyla, a graduate student at UC Berkeley’s Berkeley Sensor & Actuator Center, the designer of the ultrasound gesture-recognition chip, called Chirp, has told MIT Technology Review that the small size of the touch screen on a wearable device limits what you can do. Przybyla's Chirp team is building an ultrasound chip that doesn't consume a lot of power and has a small enough footprint for smartwatches and head mounted displays (HMDs).
Chirp uses sonar to detect hand gestures. Ultrasonic pulses from the chip echo off of objects. The chip can detect a range of gestures within a range of one meter.
According to the author of the article in MIT Technology Review:
Przybyla showed me a demo of Chirp at the lab he works out of at UC Berkeley, where the chips that comprise it were hooked up to a computer, allowing me to control a computer-animated plane’s flight path on a monitor by moving my hand in front of the display. Since the demo included a linear array of transducers, rather than a two-dimensional array, I was only able to check out Chirp in two dimensions (meaning I could control the plane’s side-to-side and forward-and-backward movements, but could not move it up and down). The group has built a chip with a two-dimensional array, but Przybyla says it’s still working to improve Chirp’s ability to track that up-and-down angle. It was noticeably easier to control on my first try than some other kinds of gesture-recognition technologies I’ve tried, and didn’t seem to require any calibration to sense most of my movements accurately.
Essentially, Chirp doesn't need the same power consuming circuitry that a typical touch screen requires because it is sensing low-speed sound as opposed to light. The small screens on a smartwatch, for example, are annoying and don't seem to advance user interaction in any way so, alternative methods have to be used to improved interaction on these devices.
Eventually, Chirp may be able to recognize more than hand gestures, providing feedback on whole body movement perhaps. The chips are about five millimeters across, but Przybyla thinks that they can go as small as one or two millimeters and still be effective for handling small hand gestures.
Source: http://www.tgdaily.com/mobility-brief/81184-3d-gesture-recognition-chip-for-smartwatches-and-hmds
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
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• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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