Researchers develop glowing gloves to surf the net

Bangalore: Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a method to implement a 3D gesture-based interface that needs only a pair of specially coloured lycra gloves and a basic webcam.

The researchers have developed a system that could make gestural interfaces much more practical. Aside from a standard web cam, like those found in many new computers, the system uses only a single piece of hardware i.e. a multicoloured lycra glove that could be manufactured for about a dollar.

Other prototypes of cheap gestural interfaces have used coloured tape attached to the fingertips, but “that’s 2D information,” says Robert Wang, a Graduate Student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, who developed the new system together with Professor Jovan Popovic. “You’re only getting the fingertips; you don’t even know which fingertip (the tape) is corresponding to.”

The glove went through a series of designs, with dots and patches of different shapes and colours, but the current version is covered with 20 irregularly shaped patches that use 10 different colours.