Take a HANDS-FREE selfie: App snaps photos from up to 10ft away using a simple swipe of the arm

Home »Take a HANDS-FREE selfie: App snaps photos from up to 10ft away using a simple swipe of the arm

Take a HANDS-FREE selfie: App snaps photos from up to 10ft away using a simple swipe of the arm

Posted by sciencetech-blog on Monday, June 30, 2014 Label:

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Selfie fans, your life just got a little easier.

A Swedish tech start-up has launched an app for Apple devices that lets people take photos of themselves without having to touch their screens.

Using touchless technology, which it says is ideal for taking 'selfies' or 'groupies', Crunchfish's GoCam app lets users trigger photos or videos from a distance with just hand gestures.

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Using touchless technology which it says is ideal for taking 'selfies' or 'groupies', Crunchfish's GoCam app lets users trigger photos or videos from a distance with just hand gestures

Photos can be triggered from a distance of up to 10 ft (3 metres), the company claims.

The company, based in the southern Swedish city of Malmo, says the free GoCam app is currently only available in Sweden and Australia.

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Over the past few years, gesture recognition has become more popular thanks to products such as Microsoft's Kinect for video games.

However, power-hungry technology has yet to become mainstream in computers or mobile devices.

Photos can be triggered from a distance of up to 10 feet (3 metres). The company, based in the southern Swedish city of Malmo, says the free GoCam app is currently only available in Sweden and Australia

The technology using something known as Touchless A3D software which detects and tracks different gestures. It does this using a video stream from the camera in the mobile phone, picking up on particular movements, such as a wave of a hand

'Even though a number of handset vendors globally are integrating our touchless software for different features into their devices, we wanted to develop GoCam in order to show the capabilities of gesture interaction also in the iOS environment,' said Joakim Nydemark, chief executive of the group.

The technology using something known as Touchless A3D software which detects and tracks different gestures.

It does this using a video stream from the camera in the mobile phone, picking up on particular movements, such as a wave of a hand.

'Touchless A3D requires no hardware changes and runs on all major mobile operating systems, the company writes on its website.

'This makes it possible for the user to experience a new interaction paradigm in any mobile device.'

NOW YOU CAN SWITCH THE KETTLE ON FROM ANOTHER ROOM USING WI-FI

Too lazy to get up to switch the kettle on? Soon you may be able to simply raise your hand or nod your head from another room, and you'll be moments away from a fresh cup of tea.

This is the hope of researchers at the University of Washington who have developed technology that will allow people to control household devices with simple gestures.

The technology, named 'WiSee', is similar in concept to how Microsoft's Xbox Kinect sensor works by using cameras to recognise gestures.

By adapting a Wi-Fi router and wireless household devices, the researchers developed a system that can detect specific movements without the need for sensors or cameras.

They claim it is simpler and cheaper than similar gesture-recognition technologies

Out of the 900 gestures performed, WiSee accurately recognised 94 per cent of them.

It was found that as many as five people can move simultaneously in the same room without confusing the receiver.

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