Development of a human computer interface based on hand gestures

Chapter 1 Introduction Since the early years of computers the keyboard and the mouse has been the most popular way of human-computer interaction; however in recent years it has been observed a new trend in searching for more natural and immersive kind of interfaces, making users able to interact with their whole body or just touching or moving input devices. Touchscreen display is a well known technology, as the rst exemplary were introduce in the market in the second half of the 1960s 1 but its mas- sive consumer use started since the introduction by Apple Inc. of the iPhone in 2007 2 ; after this event, touchscreen devices became more and more popular and other interesting application were launched in the market, like Microsoft Surface from Microsoft Corporation, an interactive table developed as a software and hardware combination of technology that allows multiple users to manipulate digital content with gestures performed touch- ing the table, and that can interface to other physical devices leant on its plane. A revolution in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) eld were introduced by Nintendo Co,Ltd. that launched the Wii in the late 2006 3 , a last generation gaming console with a set of controller devices that make the user able to interact with the system with his body, thanks to motion sensors and infrared transmitters and receivers that allow to estimate the 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#History 2 iPhone is a new generation smartphone that presents a multitouch interface as main interaction way. More information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone 3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii 8