Concept for Touchless Gestures on Windows 8

Windows 8 is already out with all of its interesting new features, especially touchscreen support, but if just that doesn’t do it for you, Elliptic Labs has just announced a new type of technology to complement Microsoft’s OS. This is called the Windows 8 Gesture Suite, which incorporates the touchless gesture control tech the company has been working on for a while, meaning you don’t have to put your finger on the computer’s display to move the cursor around and worry about having to wipe smeared fingerprints off the screen every few minutes. 

How does it work? 
The Gesture Suite has ultrasound, which makes use of sound waves to recognize input from movements in the area. The primary sensor is the computer’s camera like with most gesture control systems such as the Xbox Kinect, though the suite is also capable of detecting movements beyond that range as well if you decide to go for Elliptic’s Starter kit, which gives you a few microphones to add to your computer. These microphones make use of the same kind of ultrasound tech in the suite and can capture your hand’s movements even when it’s out of the camera’s range. The suite can recognize all the gestures that Windows OS does, but if you decide to add in Elliptic’s SDK, you’ll be able to make use of those that are not on the list, such as cycling through applications and opening and closing them with different hand movements. The Windows 8 Gesture Suite and other Elliptic Labs products are already available on the company’s website, though the price is still unknown.