Coming soon: The Touchless Touch Screen?

Qualcom acquiring IP from Gesture Tek to integrate on Snapdragon. (WARNING: High amounts of sarcasm)

Engadget reported today via Phone Scoop that Qualcomm is acquiring some gesture recognition assets from Gesture Tek. I'm not sure just how to feel about this. I have my own slightly jaded view of Gesture Tek and their camera-based gesture recognition technology from a past life, but maybe Qualcomm has an idea here that could be more than an evolution but maybe, just maybe, a revolution? Hmmm.

First: Personal history and common sense

To begin with, I have experienced product organizations before that, for some inexplicable reason, were stuck on the whole Gesture Tek technology and were convinced that gesture gaming was going to be a great selling point for mobile phones. Never mind the inferior and inconsistent technology that was GT at the time, let's assume instead that it was actually a capable implementation. Embedding proprietary technology into a platform and locking yourselves into custom built games with limited possibilities, at an outrageously high development price, is just not sound business. But there were, and still are, even more fundamental reasons why gesture gaming just doesn't fly on mobile - and why I have doubts about camera-based gesture technology on portable devices as a whole.

Game play: My first experience with GT was at a time when 3.5" displays were considered large. Even so, and even with today's larger screens, the distance required for the front-facing camera to be effective for gesture recognition was about.. oh… one to two meters. Now think about it for a second folks. How well would you see the 3.5" display of your mobile phone at that distance? Well enough to accurately play a boxing, basketball or ping-pong game on your mobile? You decide.

Camera requirement: Playing a gesture recognition game requires a front-facing camera and lots of room. Not just that,
but playing a gesture recognition game where the Gesture Tek technology can sense your motions requires not just a camera with a wide enough lens to "see" your movements in order to decrease the distance from the lens, but also a front-facing camera with a resolution AND FRAME RATE high enough to accurately and quickly sense and translate your movement into the gaming environment. Do you think a VGA camera running at 10 fps is going to provide accurate gameplay? You decide.

Desk stand: Can't do it without one and it needs to be at the correct angle. My first experience with the concept was a clamshell form-factor. Ugh!

Nope, never really felt the love for GT in the mobile space. Bad use case and unsound business case. Just too gimmicky.

Next: The future is now… again.

A lot has changed since my period of Gesture Tek due diligence and many things have moved to a better place for gesture recognition and Qualcomm is certainly not doing this for grins. So, what could they have up their sleeve?

Not long ago details were leaked about the new Snapdragon being four times faster in graphics with "console quality gaming." It is reported to support not just 1080p displays and 3D video but 7.1-channel Dolby Surround and up to a 20-megapixel camera should someone actually deliver one for mobile. 

Display sizes for smartphones and tablets today are typically in the 4"-10" range. This makes a better playing field for gesture recognition. This doesn't eliminate the front-facing camera requirement (wide angle, high resolution, 30 fps frame rate) but it does make it possible to see what you're doing to a better extent and get some emersion into your gameplay. Still not optimal, however.

Gesture navigation. What if you could go all CSI, Minority Report, Hawaii Five-0 over your Android tablet and navigate thru your mail, news app, or calendar, without having to reach across your desk? I mean, who wants to strain that far up out of the chair and actually touch their touchscreen. I hate greasy fingerprints and I'm always eating fried chicken at my desk for lunch so this would be the killer use case.

Strategic partnership with MS. Could Microsoft and Qualcomm be looking to use this as a path to creating an Xbox 360 Kinect experience on Windows Phone? Hope I'm not standing next to that gamer on my train ride to work.

Input device: With all of the specs mentioned above would it be better to use your mobile device for input only - and put the picture out via mini HDMI to a large screen? Or if you're a gamer - would it be better to just hook up your Xbox 360 Kinect to your TV instead?

Smart TV's: get your chips into Smart TVs with 20-megapixel cameras so we can program gesture navigation controls and ditch that remote control. Can't you just see the channel changing every time you swat at a fly or shake your fist in victory as your striker shoots on goal - CLICK!

These are some very exciting possibilities that could be driving this latest IP acquisition, but I just have to go back to common sense and the title of this post. What is the goal here? To create the touchless touch interface? To create new gaming environments for mobile that are poorly experienced on portable devices? In my opinion (if you haven't guessed it by now) someone at Qualcomm was walking slowly thru the big city and staring up at the skyscrapers. "Psssst. Hey, Bud! Wanna buy some gesture technology?"