Is Gesture the Future of Computing?

 With its Project Goa, Nod Labs hopes to make gesture control more powerful and portable than ever.

- Sophia Stuart

TWO RINGS TO BIND THEM

Computing command input mechanisms have gone from the DOS prompt to the mouse to gaming peripherals. But what’s next? Some say voice, but Siri, Cortana, and Google Now are still often comically lost in translation. Nod Labs says the future belongs to motion tracking and gesture control.

“There are too many issues with voice input and speech recognition,” Nod Labs founder and CEO Anush Elangovan told PC Magazine during a recent visit to the company’s Mountain View headquarters. “You’re often in a shared space and don’t necessarily want to be overheard. Much of the time there’s too much ambient noise for the computer to be able to isolate the exact audio stream.SP

“But gesture—quite literally on the other hand,” he said wryly, “is subtle, possible, and most interesting to work with.” And a nod is “the simplest human gesture, and we communicate human intent, so [the name Nod Labs] felt fitting,” said Elangovan.

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco in March, Nod Labs announced its latest product, the VR-focused Project Goa. Goa features two of the company’s Backspin controllers, a mobile headset that works with all major smartphones, and a charging station that doubles as a discreet camera for precision head and hand tracking. Nod Labs claims it provides a feeling of “presence” that’s similar to what you experience on high-end, head-mounted systems like the Oculus Rift, but is more affordable. It’s not intended to be a direct to consumer product at this time, so manufacturers that decide to incorporate and support the technology will determine its price.