British boffins make touchless computing tech on the cheap
- Reference: 1658254889
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/07/19/touchless_computing_intel/
- Source link:
The software, called [1]MotionInput , was developed to enable touchless computing for a variety of purposes, from making computers easier to use for people with disabilities, to aiding professionals who have their hands full, like surgeons.
The software, which is now onto the third version, is [2]available to download for free for non-commercial purposes. It's currently only supported by Windows though there are plans to extend support to Linux, MacOS, and Android.
[3]
MotionInput can be customized to translate a variety of movements and vocal commands into mouse, keyboard and joystick signals. This means users can use anything from their nose to their hands to browse the internet, compose a document, or play a game.
[4]
[5]
[6]Youtube Video
What's particularly neat is that it doesn't require an internet connection or hooks to the cloud since all computing is handled locally on the CPU, and not even a high-end device with loads or compute and memory. The [7]boffins recommendation is an Intel Core processor from 2017 and 4GB of RAM at minimum, although more CPU cores and the use of an SSD will lead to a better experience.
[8]Back to the Future of Collaboration Applications
[9]Cruise self-driving cars stopped and clogged up San Francisco for hours
[10]Elon Musk's brother buys Intel's fireworks-replacing drone biz
[11]People who regularly talk to AI chatbots often start to believe they're sentient, says CEO
The software can interpret movements and voice thanks to a mix of computer vision models, which have been optimized to run well on regular CPUs using Intel's OpenVINO toolkit, according to a [12]press release from Intel. The chipmaker provided technical assistance to the researchers alongside mentors from Microsoft and IBM.
Costas Stylianou, a technical specialist at Intel, said these optimizations will enable more people to use MotionInput since OpenVINO gives it "several orders of magnitude improvements in efficiency and an architecture for supporting the growth of touchless computing apps as an ecosystem."
[13]
The researchers didn't even need to train the models on expensive systems typically needed for such work because they were already trained by Intel and made available through OpenVINO.
"What makes this software so special is that it is fully accessible," said Phillippa Chick, global account director for health and life science at Intel.
"The code does not require expensive equipment to run. It works with any standard webcam, including the one in your laptop. It's just a case of downloading and you are ready to go." ®
Get our [14]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.touchlesscomputing.org/
[2] https://students.cs.ucl.ac.uk/software/MotionInput/v2/MotionInput.html
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Ytcpgq0hv8WeV4gOysVkaAAAAAY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ytcpgq0hv8WeV4gOysVkaAAAAAY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Ytcpgq0hv8WeV4gOysVkaAAAAAY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://youtu.be/GfIZd9eqxTw
[7] https://students.cs.ucl.ac.uk/software/MotionInput/v2/MotionInput3-FAQ-HelpGuide.txt
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/16/back_to_the_future_of/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/18/cruise_cars_stopped/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/05/elon_musks_brother_buys_intels/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/04/ai_in_brief/
[12] https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/newsroom/news/interact-computer-without-touching.html
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Ytcpgq0hv8WeV4gOysVkaAAAAAY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Where's the God in this?
It has no cloud dependency. No DLC, no microtransactions. Doesn't send telemetry or push "exclusive content from carefully-curated partners". No enforced updates. No mandatory account creation. No social media integration.
Please, at least tell me that it has a Modern UI where text and controls are indistinguishable from each other (and the window background) and there are dark patterns to steer you away from the useful options?
Spidey-sense tingling. Does not compute. Error! Error!
Re: Where's the God in this?
Excuse me but how is Google going to serve you the right advert if it can't analyze your gesture, eye movement, voice pitch or breathing?
Re: Where's the God in this?
Must... not... do... obvious... prOn joke...
Re: Where's the God in this?
Oh go on. You're among friends like-minded unreconstructed perverts here.
AMD CPUs?
Hmm. Is there stuff in the Intel-provided libraries that prevent them from running on AMD CPUs? That'll cut out a good portion of laptops and desktops.
Fitness for programmers
No you can code via Interpretive Dance, swapping pirouettes for semicolons.
Re: Fitness for programmers
Waving hands in the air and talking ******** is generally know as testiculation.
Re: Fitness for programmers
So, basically, you are saying all the devs and programmers can be fired and the PHBs, marketing and sales, ie those best at handwavey stuff, will be the new devs?
I just installed it
First, it doesn't work well on a tablet (which I'm currently using, Surface Go 2) but the problem isn't a lack of power, it's that my face and fingers are too close to the screen.
That said, it shows definite promise, although there are some glitches which is to be expected in an early release. I haven't gone through all the documentation since I avoid RTFM and it's not that intuitive. Voice recognition works, sometimes, as does gesture recognition, which works less reliably on my tablet for the reason detailed above. I haven't figured out how to move the cursor so I can't test the thumb and different finger gestures which can generate mouse clicks.
I may try it on one of my big computers and actually read the documentation.
It's not yet ready for prime time (and I certainly wouldn't want my surgeon using it which was one of their use cases) but I will take another look when it comes out of beta.
Re: I just installed it
"I may try it on one of my big computers and actually read the documentation."
That;s actually, possibly intentionally, quite an endorsement. You installed it and successfully played with it in a non-optimal situation with no instruction and it mostly worked. I look forward to your comments when you've read the user guide and have a more optimal PC or laptop to try it on :-)
Re: I just installed it
I have a potential use-case for it, but placement of a webcam is going to be awkward - it'll either be off to one side or about 8ft away from the user above a projected image. I suppose I could look for a webcam with a zoom lens.
Your experience is that it doesn't like being too close, but how about far away?
M.
Re: I just installed it
> I suppose I could look for a webcam with a zoom lens.
The Raspberry Pi can be used as a webcam; with the newer camera module you have a wide choice of C/CS mount lenses, bound to find one that'll fit your needs. Though the aesthetics of a Pi bolted to camera module aren't to everyone's tastes.
Where's the God in this?
Only through Cloud can one achieve digital salvation!