Zothecula writes "Binghamton University computer scientist Lijun Yin thinks that using a computer should be a comfortable and intuitive experience, like talking to a friend. As anyone who has ever yelled 'Why did you go and do that?' at their PC or Mac will know, however, using a computer is currently sometimes more like talking to an overly-literal government bureaucrat who just doesn't get you. Thanks to Yin's work with things like emotion recognition, however, that might be on its way to becoming a thing of the past."

siliconbits writes "Microsoft is rumoured to be one of their partners; maybe they'll built it in the next Kinect. 'Computer manufacturer Lenovo has partnered with Swedish startup Tobii Technology to launch the world's first eye-controlled laptop, which will be on display as from today at CeBIT in Hannover.'"

unassimilatible writes "Artist Hye Yeon Nam has put her video game where her mouth is — literally — with the creation of a new bowling game that's controlled only by passionate (and awkward) French kissing. The Kiss Controller, as it's called, has two components: a headset that functions as a sensor receiver and a magnet that provides the sensor input, Time reports. Could this be the first example of technology that Slashdotters will be unable to use, as they likely won't be able to get a controller?"

Zothecula writes "While the simple act of logging off a workstation is an obvious way to protect sensitive data – like that used by healthcare providers, pharmacies, banks and government agencies – it is all too easy for users to forget and leave the data not only viewable, but also editable by anyone who happens to pass by. Custom keyboard supplier Key Source International (KSI) has developed a keyboard that does the remembering for you, logging out as soon as the user physically leaves the keyboard."

An anonymous reader writes "German researchers have demonstrated a car that can be driven with brain power alone. In the video, a driver wears an EEG head cap, which records brain activity. Software converts the neural signals into steering and acceleration commands, feeding the data into the car's drive-by-wire system. The brain-car interface, which the researchers call the 'BrainDriver,' is far from being commercially viable. But it could one day allow disabled and paralyzed people to gain more mobility. It could also, the researchers say, help people control autonomous vehicles, like a future driverless cab; just by thinking, passengers would tell the cab where to go."

SuperSlacker64 writes "In an age where just about everything starts going digital, it's refreshing to see someone going back to our roots: paper. Well, sort of. Researchers at Harvard have created a cheap, dime-sized, paper-based accelerometer that they believe could be used in various ways, such as inexpensive medical testing. The device works because a carbon bridge stretches and changes resistivity as the device is accelerated." When they say "cheap," they mean it; the cost per device is estimated to be about four cents.

baxpace writes "The first open source prototype of a tangible table using the Microsoft Kinect sensor. The hack is essentially a proof of concept that can serve a multitude of purposes including a real-time analysis on urban models. The program uses the Kinect point cloud which is mapped onto a flat surface. The upper layer of the point cloud will apply a colour to anything that is placed on the table and is recognized by the Kinect depth sensor. Every object that is placed on the table is detected automatically and in turn becomes trackable."

An anonymous reader writes with this snippet from Kinect Hacks: "Being able to send gestural data captured from your Kinect to another device via your computer of IR is incredible. You can send gesture recognition data to any piece of hardware that uses IR signals, such as your television, receiver, cable box or X10 extenders. Anything that reads IR signals can now be controlled by simply using gestures to control the devices. Absolutely amazing. The developer wrote custom code that works with his Kinect sensor plugged into his Mac Mini. The code is integrated with OpenNI which detects the user's skeleton and has specific gestures pre-programmed to control his TV in order to turn it off and on along with changing the volume on his digital receiver. Other gestures include the ability to change to the next and previous channel."

lpctstr writes "Researchers from the University of Washington and Microsoft Research have found that cursor movements and cursor hovers can detect the relevance of a search result and whether a user may abandon the search. They use an efficient algorithm written in Javascript to silently record movements and clicks on Bing and find that computing relevance using movements + clicks works better than just clicks (the current state-of-the-art). They explain some of this due to cursor and gaze being closely aligned on the web, and especially so on search result pages. Is this the future of innovation in search ranking — Google and Bing tracking your every twitch and pause?"

mikejuk writes with this snippet from I, Programmer: "True 3D realtime holography is not only possible — it makes use of a Kinect as its input device. A team at MIT has recreated the famous 3D Princess Leia scene from the original Star Wars — but as a live video feed! It's a great stunt but don't miss the importance — this is realtime 3D holography and that means you can view it without any glasses or other gadgets and you can move around and see behind objects in the scene. This is more than the flat 3D you get in movies."

An anonymous reader writes "30 years before words like performance capture, augmented reality, or avatars were around — let alone commonplace — experimental film and video artist Tom DeWitt created a system that features aspects of all of them. Pantomation let users interact in real-time with a digital environment and props. It was built using Apple IIe's, analog video gear, and lots of custom hacking and patching. He's currently working on a holographic 3D system that's similarly ahead of its time."

astrodoom writes "AppleInsider has posted a story detailing a new patent application by Apple that hints at the possibility of adding a touchscreen to the company's magic mouse. At a basic level this could mean things like customizable colors or artwork displayed on the user's mouse, but the possibilities extend much further to fully customizable mouse layouts and program controls. Apple Insider comments on the possibilities: 'The display on the mouse would change according to what the user may be doing on their Mac. As an example, the application describes displaying a number of icons for quickly selectable options when a user is running Apple's Pages word processing application. Switching over to the spreadsheet software, Numbers would reconfigure the buttons on the screen to allow for commands in that respective application.'"

TechieAlizay points out a post at Geekword.net about a man who hacked Microsoft's Kinect to play Max Payne. "This hack was possible due to FAAST (a toolkit for Kinect), OpenNi/Nite and GlovePIE. Here's how the hacker describes the different control gestures: 'As you can see, the leaning left and right stuff is all there – and moving your body forward and back moves you back and forward. The reload and interact gestures are becoming pretty standard for me now, and pain killers are popped with an upward motion of the left hand. What makes this special though is the leg movements that activate bullet time. The result is bullet time diving for real! When this game hit just after the Matrix film came out, it caused a big stir – with Kinect augmentation it gets even better. The one thing that needs fixing is weapon select; this will be handled by the +/- buttons on the mote in future, I think.'" Another video shows Kinect controlling Left 4 Dead 2. In addition to future PC support, Microsoft is reportedly working on an official SDK. Yet another recent hack of note allows a human to control a humanoid robot with an impressive level of accuracy. Just be careful if you play the Kinect boxing game; somebody might call the police.

Kramer747 writes "to share a new tool I've developed for neuroscience that uses optogenetics to remotely control the neurons of a worm as it swims or crawls. Its called CoLBeRT, Controlling Locomotion and Behavior in Real Time. With the instrument I can induce the worm to stop, accelerate, lay eggs or experience the illusion of touch. All source code to run the instrument is GPLd and available. Science News and Scientific American both have stories. The project homepage is at colbert.physics.harvard.edu." I hope that name also constitutes a successful bid to get on the actual Colbert show!

Zothecula writes "First achieving widespread use with the release of the Apple Macintosh in 1984, the humble computer mouse has reigned supreme as the digital pointing device of choice for more than 20 years. During this time it has seen off countless pretenders to the throne, as well as undergoing some useful (and otherwise) redesigns such as Apple's Magic Mouse, Microsoft's Arc, the 3D-Spheric-Mouse, the AirMouse and the Orbita. The latest product to take a shot at the title is the Ergo-Slider Plus+, a device that looks like a padded wrist rest, but with a cylinder at the front that rolls and slides in a special groove to move the onscreen cursor." It reminds me of the Isopoint pointing device in the long-passed Apple-compatible Outbound Laptop.

wirelessdreamer writes "Using a real guitar, with a hex-aphonic pickup, and guitar synth rock band 3 pro guitar mode can be played NOW with a real guitar. Thanks to the game2midi project for makeing g2ghpro a multiplatform release. Selfless promotion as the submitter is the game2midi project lead :)"

Ken writes "Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said that the company will support Kinect for PCs sometime in the future. The motion controller is currently only officially supported for the Xbox 360, although it has been hacked and tweaked to work on pretty much any platform that can be plugged into via a USB port. 'We're trying to move beyond gaming to include the world of socialization, movies, TV, music, and we're trying to make the whole experience accessible to everybody in the family not just the traditional gamer.' When Ballmer was asked, 'Will you plug-in the Kinect to the PC, will you go for that in the near future?' he replied, 'We'll support that in a formal way in the right time and when we've got an announcement to make we'll make it.' Note that this is completely separate from the Kinect-like controller from PrimeSense and Asus." Other readers have tipped related articles about Kinect being used to enable 3D teleconferencing and help drive a small helicopter drone.

CWmike writes "Next-generation touch-screen devices will embed more haptics, or touch-based feedback, into virtual keyboards. 'A lot of companies are really getting into haptics, [using] source feedback and a sense of touch to try to replicate a keyboard on a display,' says Bruce Gant, a mechanical engineer at Product Development Technologies, which integrates touch screens into cell phones and other devices for manufacturers. 'If people really get that down and nail that experience, [virtual keyboards] could replace mechanical keyboards on laptops.' Don't tell that to Motorola, which just introduced the Atrix 4G, and dual-core 4.3-inch smartphone that docks to a laptop with, you guessed it, a physical keyboard."

kkleiner writes "SEGA recently announced that they are testing their Toylets male urinal video game at select locations around Tokyo. Toylets uses a pressure sensor located on the back of the urinal to measure the strength and location of your urine stream. A small LCD screen above the urinal allows you to play several simple video games including a simulator for erasing graffiti and a variation on a sumo wrestling match. At the end of a game, the screen displays advertisements. Whether you find the concept hilarious, disturbing, or disgusting, urinal video games are simply another way that interactive media could invade every part of our lives. It also shows that no space is safe from digital ads."

Gamasutra reports that cloud gaming service OnLive has reached an agreement with Vizio to integrate OnLive directly into the hardware manufacturer's TVs and Blu-ray players. "Vizio also announced that it will introduce ... tablets and smartphones based on Google's Android operating system that integrate the gaming service through its Via Plus ecosystem. OnLive is already publicly available for Apple's iPad, but that app is exclusively for spectating other people who are playing Onlive through PCs or the MicroConsole. Perlman said Onlive is coming to Vizio's mobile devices with playable games. ... Perlman also said that thanks to the open nature of the Android platform, manufacturers are creating more traditional game controllers for Android tablets. Some resemble a gamepad cut in half, where one half snaps on either side of the table screen, Perlman said. Certain Android tablets will also potentially work with Onlive's official controller, if the mobile device supports the appropriate RF interface."