IMS Research believes Apple will need to embrace embedded vision-based technologies in its next product releases in order for the company to maintain its competitive edge.
Competitors such as Samsung and Microsoft have steadily begun integrating these technologies in recent releases and several more have products slated for debut in the next year, as competitive differentiators to employ against Apple. These technologies will also become commonplace in the years to come.
Apple’s competitors are also more aggressively deploying camera-based gesture recognition applications. Microsoft has already shown its commitment to gesture control with the Xbox 360 and upcoming Windows 8 platforms, along with gesture-friendly common interfaces across devices. Windows 8-based laptops and tablets incorporating gesture control with either standard or enhanced front-facing cameras are debuting this year. Android-based smartphones and tablets incorporating gesture control will debut in volume in late 2012. In the home video arena, where Apple has significant aspirations, Samsung is only the first of several major consumer electronics companies to debut camera-based gesture recognition this year in its Smart TVs. Vision-based applications are thus expected to be a competitive differentiator going forward.
hard to believe that Apple is not working on a gesture based NUI. although depth cameras are not in the right form factor yet and I don't think they will sell it as a peripheral USB camera.
ReplyDeleteI'm still trying to understand why I'd want to wave my hands at a mobile device. Tablet and handset screens are so small they have to be (a) handheld, which occupies at least one hand, and (b) don't leave a lot of distance between you and the screen for gesturing. The use case make more sense for larger screens (TVs, desktop PCs, public kiosks, etc.) where you either don't want to touch the screen for sanitary reasons or would normally view from a larger distance.
ReplyDeleteMany people use their tablets to watch movies, read newspapers in the morning, or check recipes in the kitchen. I don't really want to get up or wash my hands in between each action if I can avoid it.
ReplyDeleteI can also imagine many other uses for high resolution finger data in 3d, once the hardware is in place.
Instead of telling Apple what to do, it will, as always, show us what we need the most.
ReplyDeleteApple's gotta be working on gesture recognition in a lab somewhere....
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