wizard school

[egypturnash]

Making a magic wand with Quicksilver. (Short version: Gyration 3D wireless mouse + Quicksilver's gesture-recognition plugin + time spent building triggers = spooky action at a distance.) I'd seen this earlier this month, and looked at it again when BoingBoing linked to it. And it got me thinking, pondering, even researching.

How small a package could you get this into? Could you stuff it, a transmitter, a battery, and a little pushbutton or two into a ring? Maybe a tiny LED for feedback. Wizards like rings that glow with power.

Press your fingers together to casually activate a switch on your ring. Move your hand. Stuff happens. Things go on and off. Music stops and starts. The lighting changes. Locks switch. Video starts. Disembodied voices acknowledge your gesture, perhaps even hold a conversation with you to clarify your orders. Whatever home automation you can dream up.

How fine a motion can you sense with this kind of stuff? Draw a sigil in the air, turn an imaginary knob, twist a gestured dial. The sigil launches a little program; that watches the motion and mimics the knob. And then it does something. What would you like it to do? How much are you willing to dig into arcane incantations?

(And a slightly earlier entry in the same blog points to an interesting way to structure gestures - sadly, windows-only at the moment.)

Comments

[neogeen.livejournal.com]

...I..I have that mouse.

And now I want to do horrable things to it.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Like gut it, stick the electronics into a much prettier package, and find some gesture recognition software for your machine? mmmmmm.

[neogeen.livejournal.com]

Yes, YES. I have this idea [what have you done?!]...
Sometimes I wish I had the ability to learn everything I wish I could do. This would totally be out of my current abilities...but I can DREAM IT.

But, imagine in a club setting a giant animatronic monstrous centerpeice. Wallmounted, ala some crazy taxadermy. Simple movements, like head up/down/left/right. Eye glow, mouth open [perhaps]. Very stylized.
And the controller box [this amazing thing, this magic wand!] worn or held by a dancer.

Turn it all on and the dancer makes this swooping left arm motion and this thing comes alive and swings its head to the left. The dancers motions being translated into this moving scuplture.

Ghrnnrrrggg.
I'll figure this out. Need to find people with the know-how powers.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

This is why technologists need artists on hand. We look at stuff like this and want to misuse it for PRETTY.

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

Damn you. I wanna do it now.

[siddacious.livejournal.com]

omfgtechnomage

[somnialcat.livejournal.com]

Neat idea. Gesture-based input has gotten plenty of interest lately. I first saw it in Black & White, but you can even find it in web browsers now. And there are commercially available MEMS accelerometers on 7mm x 7mm chips, so it's relatively feasible.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been using a gesture hack to do back/forth/tabclose in my browsers for quite some time. very simple strokes, but they're embedded in my brain now!

7x7x3.6mm... yeah, if one could find wireless chips equally tiny (probably!) it'd all fit in a chunky ring. Whee!

[dagoski.livejournal.com]

What a cool idea. Wished we'd thought of this back in Ann Arbor for Jessie and her amazing Orchestra in a Box. That was the name of the act when I nattered tracerj into doing an open mic with her tracking. This would've been an excellent prop for that. Come to think of it, didn't Laurie Anderson scratch build something like this for her shows?

[luoto.livejournal.com]

Just as a curiosity: A russian named Leon Theremin invented an instrument in 1921 that is played with hand-gestures in the air:
http://www.oddmusic.com/theremin/what_is_a_theremin.html
Wonder why this technique hasnt been developed further, could perhaps be adapted to computers also (with modern electronics of course! You woldn´t need any rings or stuff at all - just your hands...

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

I imagine a theremin wouldn't work too well next to another theremin. You might get interference with similar input systems that would have to be worked out.

Humm

[warlockd.livejournal.com]

Ring won't work. The power reqirements are kind of high if your going to use button cells.

But a wand would defenitly work:) Makes me wonder if this is what they are using in the wii?

Re: Humm

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, I think they are. Although there is also an infrared pointer, I believe.

Re: Humm

[eriscontrol.livejournal.com]

Unexpected login timeouts fail at life.