Wi-Fi Enables Whole House Gesture Control

If you have Microsoft’s Xbox 360 with Kinect game console (above) in your home, then you’re familiar with gesture control. Your body becomes the joystick because the device translates your movements into on-screen motion. Samsung’s Galaxy S4 smartphone also works using gestures — just swipe your hand over the screen (without touching it) to answer an incoming call. Both of these devices use a camera or some other kind of motion-tracking sensor to capture movements and convert them into a computer command.

But now computer scientists at University of Washington have shown that it’s possible to attain gesture control with a Wi-Fi signal. According to the researchers, the “WiSee” concept is simpler and cheaper than devices such as Kinect and because Wi-Fi travels through walls, doesn’t require that the person is standing directly in front of the device that they want to control.

The team presented their technology at the 19th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking.

Li-Fi ,the next generation Wi-Fi.

Li-Fi is the term some have used to label the fast and cheap wireless-communication system, which is the optical version of Wi-Fi.The term was first used in this context by Harald Haas in his TED Global talk on Visible Light Communication.

The technology was demonstrated at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas using a pair of Casio smartphones to exchange data using light of varying intensity given off from their screens, detectable at a distance of up to ten metres.

In October 2011 a number of companies and industry groups formed the Li-Fi Consortium, to promote high-speed optical wireless systems and to overcome the limited amount of radio-based wireless spectrum available by exploiting a completely different part of the electromagnetic spectrum. The consortium believes it is possible to achieve more than 10 Gbps, theoretically allowing a high-definition film to be downloaded in 30 seconds.

Li-Fi has the advantage of being able to be used in sensitive areas such as in aircraft without causing interference. However, the light waves used cannot penetrate walls.

Later in 2012, VLC, a firm set up to commercialize Li-Fi, will bring out Li-Fi products for firms installing LED-lighting systems.