Beside representing yet another occasion for the biggest names in the CE industry to showcase their latest products, the CES show is also a good opportunity for lesser-known companies to promote their innovations, which, in many cases, are a lot more interesting than much better-established products, but, unfortunately, don't benefit from the power of the other “tech-behemoths” in order to become mainstream. And that's exactly the case with the 3D Depth Tracking & Control solutions presented by the GestureTek company, which are actually capable of translating body movements into computer commands.

According to the manufacturer's statement, the gesture recognition technology developed by GestureTek enables users to control pretty much any consumer device equipped with camera, while using nothing more than very simple motions. The system tracks full-body movement and subtle gestures in complete 3D space, translating those movements into specific computer commands, and can be very easily programmed to recognize virtually any pose or gesture, including hand waves, pointing or any combination of recognizable motions.

Furthermore, by adding depth-sensing cameras to the system, the users' body movements could be completely translated into virtual ones, thus opening the road for virtual reality without the need for complicated hardware and setups. It's useless to say that the applications for such a technology are quite extensive, whether we're talking about home (gaming, social networking), commercial, medical or scientific ones.

However, despite Bill Leckonby's, CEO of GestureTek, statement, that the "intuitive and fun gesture control technology is already used in interactive game systems, digital signage networks and millions of mobile phones worldwide," the truth is that gesture recognition and translation is still very far from having reached its full potential, and we'll most likely see a lot more applications based around it popping up in the future.


We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .