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,