Gest

By: Noah

Being hands-off usually means relinquishing control. With Gest, it's the exact
opposite.
Remember Tony Stark in his lab in Iron Man, browsing through a massive amount
of data with a literal swipe of his hand? That's the type of control that Gest, a
minimalist wearable hand tracker, wants to bring to your computer. (Presumably
you don't have a holographic display that fills the room of your private lab.)
Gest, developed by startup Apotact Labs, doesn't look like much; its four wires
with adjustable finger bands hang out from a plain black strap that wraps around
the palm. But what it enables, thanks to the combination of accelerometers,
gyroscopes, and magnetometers, is touchless control that would otherwise
require a mouse or keyboard.
Apotact Labs CEO and co-founder Mike Pfister told the Daily Dot that the idea for
Gest was born out of the frustration he felt trying to use tiny onscreen keyboards.
(Dellinger, 2015)

"The keyboard and mouse are starting to make less sense as our devices get
smaller," Pfister said. "We need a fundamentally new input method to control
these devicessomething that gets back to the basics as how we interact as
humans. Thats why we created Gest."
Pfister's team built the first prototype for Gest overnight during a hackathon
nearly two years ago. It underwent significant redesigns and is now seeking
$100,000 in funding on Kickstarter. Pfister isn't the first to explore the concept of
gesture controls. Gest follows products like Manus, a glove designed primarily to
improve interactions in virtual reality, and Elon Musk, SpaceX, and Leap Motion's
completely accessory-free controls. But Gest appears to be the most practical and
versatile option yet.
By far the most intriguing application of Gest is air typingthe ability to type with
no keyboard. It's still an experimental feature at this point, and it appears from
the demonstration that it relies on predictive text, like most smartphone
keyboards, to correct for any inaccuracies. Being able to call on this feature
anywhere would be a boon to mobile device users. It would also offer an input
method for virtual reality that wouldn't ruin the immersion.
Unlike a true motion tracker like Leap Motion or even the Xbox Kinect, Gest isn't
tracking exact motions. Its producing actions based on input the same way
double-clicking the mouse or typing the "D" key produces a given action. It's just
getting those commands from hand movements.
While this distinction provides considerable benefits for the deviceit's portable,
the battery lasts longer, and it can connect to basically any device that supports
Bluetooth Low Energyit also represents an adoption hurdle. Gest won't work
with software that doesn't contain special support for it.
When Gest launchesthe current target date is November 2016it will offer
support for Photoshop. Pfister said that his team is "focused on building a really
great experience with Photoshop using Adobes SDK [software development kit],"
but he isn't working directly with Adobe right now.

(Robertson, 2015) Apotact Labs has already opened up the Gest development kit
with the hope of encouraging developers to build new applications, integrations,
and use cases for the gesture control system. The company will also offer
developers access to raw sensor data and custom skeletal models, as well as
motion-processed data, in order to give them more information to inform their
work and creations. (Dellinger, 2015)
"We dont need to work directly with developers," Pfister explained. "Its
important to us that we give them the room to create and contribute on their
own. We value that greatly.
Gest is already well on its way to meeting its fundraising goal. Early-bird backers
can score Gest for a $99 pledge. That's just for one hand, though. When Gest
eventually hits the market, it will retail for $200 per hand.
Scientists say that gestures were the first form of human communicationits
how we spoke with each other back in the day of cave drawings and
mammoths. When we were young we also used gestures to point at things we
didnt know the name of. Using our hands to communicate is effective, so why
cant we use gestures to communicate with our computers instead of using
keyboards and a mouse? (Robertson, 2015)

Gest thanks to Gest, this is now possible. Gest is a wearable glove that
recognizes hand movements and translates them into commands your computer
can pick up. Lets say youre on Photoshop and you want to adjust the contrast,
with a rotation of the wrist you can set it however you like, almost like youre
turning a knob. If you have two of them, you can tap the table and start typing on
an invisible keyboard.

Theres a personal element to Gest too. You can program certain movements to
mean certain things, personalizing your device. It makes sense for them to do this

because everybody points and uses their hands in a different wayI for one use
my hands quite creatively to complement what Im saying.

The glove is adjustable too. Four wires sprawl out from the base component
and connect to each of your fingers through plastic clips. Its not a traditional
glove, but it molds around the hand nicely, and is actually quite a simple looking
device. Inside the wires and clips are 15 sensors, which use extremely sensitive
tracking technology to tell what your hand is doing at all times.

(Snyder, 2015)Gest The makers of Gest created the gloves with Photoshop
specifically in mind. You can use one hand to change the size of your brush
strokes without dropping your Stylus, saving time in the design process. You can
use Gest for systems like CAD to grab models and rotate them around as you
desire. Theres a huge market for this technology, and I foresee the creators
hitting it big in the coming year.

The creators originally built the first model with copper and duct tape in 2013,
and it has come a long way since then. Gest has a rechargeable battery and works
with Bluetooth to connect to your devices. It also comes jam-packed with sensors.

Gest started funding on Kickstarter in October with a pledge goal of $100,000.

They have since exceeded that, and are looking at a stretch goal of $250,000.
With 778 backers, and 16 days to go, it looks like theyre going to hit it.

Like other current Kickstarter projects, they plan to ship Gest by November of
2016. Rounds of testing are still needed, but the creators have the major features
down pat, and it should be an important tool for designers and users alike come
next November.

A device that attaches sensors to your fingers and hands can track movements in
high detail. Use cases include typing on any flat surface like its a keyboard.
The Gest controller has four soft, rubbery half-rings that clip onto your fingers,
and a pad that straps onto the back of your hand. Each device contains 15
inexpensive sensors that measure motion with gyroscopes and accelerometers,
much like those found in mobile phones. Thumb movements are inferred using
data from the other sensors.

The keyboard and mouse dont make sense for things like augmented reality and
virtual reality, Gest cofounder Mike Pfister says. Its not going to succeed unless
there is a really intuitive, fundamentally new input method.

When I met Pfister in a San Francisco coffee shop, he slipped a prototype Gest
controller onto each hand and began tapping on the table as if it were a
keyboard. As his fingers drummed, potential words popped up on the screen. He
tapped and swiped his hand to scroll through and select the correct word. Hello,
welcome to the future of interaction, he wrote.
This prototype has 15 cheap motion sensors, similar to those inside a
smartphone.
Gest doesnt need you to set up an exact location that corresponds to each key.
Instead the device uses the relative motion of your fingers to understand what
the user is trying to do. It can also adapt to a persons individual typing style over
time based on the suggested words he or she selects.
Consumer versions of motion control gloves primarily associated with the
much-maligned Nintendo Power Glove have never quite caught on. In theory,
they're supposed to combine the fine-grained control that hand-tracking cameras
can provide with the reliability of physical controllers like the Oculus Touch. In
practice, they can be bulky and constricting, and it's hard to make a truly "one size
fits all" option. Various companies are trying to build workable versions like the

Manus, a soft glove fitted with flex and motion sensors. Few, however, seem as
potentially practical as Gest.

Gest, pronounced "jest" and developed by fledgling startup Apotact Labs, is a

weird experiment based on an eminently reasonable idea. It's an adjustable black
strap that fits around a user's palm, attached by wires to four small bands that
clip onto their fingers. It's designed to be as light as possible, and it looks more
like jewelry than clothing, but Gest fills a similar niche to glove controllers. A
combination of accelerometers, gyroscopes, and magnetometers the same
kinds of sensors you'd find in a smartphone let it figure out the relative
positions of your fingers, then transmit them to a computer or mobile device over
Bluetooth.
When it comes to interacting with a computer, your options are either twodimensional like the mouse, or binary like the keys on your keyboard. But your
hands are three-dimensional and non-binary, so your tools should be too.
Gest lets you map hand gestures to keyboard shortcuts, so you can control almost
any app. Change the song? Flick your finger to the right. Increase the volume?
Twist your hand. The best part is that you get to decide which gestures map to
which actions.
Bibliography
Brewster, S. (2015, October 29th). MIT technology review. Retrieved November 9th, 2016, from MIT
technology review: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542911/get-to-grips-with-virtualobjects-using-this-stripped-down-glove/
Dellinger, A. (2015, Oct. then updated Dec. oct. 29-dec.11). The Daily Dot. Retrieved November 9th,
2016, from The Daily Dot: http://www.dailydot.com/debug/gest-gesture-control-hand-tracker/
Pfster, M. (2016, ? ?). Gest. Retrieved November 9th, 2016, from Gest: https://gest.co/
Robertson, A. (2015, October 29th). The Verge. Retrieved November 9th, 2016, from The Verge:
http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/29/9626772/gest-hand-motion-gesture-tracking-kickstarter

Snyder, C. (2015, November 30th). Buisness Insider. Retrieved November 9th, 2016, from Buisness
Insider: http://www.businessinsider.com/control-computer-with-hands-gest-2015-11