6 ms·

Radar for the Wrist

37 points by godelmachine 7y ago

melling 7y ago
Sounds like Google Soli. https://atap.google.com/soli/ https://atap.google.com/soli/ I’m waiting for the Amazon Echo breakthrough device that puts the technology in the hands of 100 million people.
hirundo 7y ago
Seems like a good fit for air typing. https://www.slashgear.com/air-type-aims-to-let-you-type-without-a-keyboard-at-all-15337338/ https://www.slashgear.com/air-type-aims-to-let-you-type-with...
- jpm_sd 7y ago
  https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-10-12 https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-10-12
gojomo 7y ago
I want one in a tooth, imaging the motions of the most articulate part of the body – the tongue – so that I can give subvocal commands to my devices.
- yeahitslikethat 7y ago
  This tech exists. The navy seals use electronic bands around their necks to detect muscle movements, convert them to sounds and broadcast to the team.
  - sawjet 7y ago
    is this related to bone-conduction microphones?
ActorNightly 7y ago
Wouldn't it detect only things that it sees in the line of sight? So if you have one hand behind the other one, it won't see it?
Loughla 7y ago
>Philips suggests it could be used to monitor the physical state of drivers to prevent accidents from medical emergencies or fatigue, among other scenarios. I'm not sure why, but that makes me very uncomfortable. I honestly don't know why.
- JadeNB 7y ago
  > > Philips suggests it could be used to monitor the physical state of drivers to prevent accidents from medical emergencies or fatigue, among other scenarios. > I'm not sure why, but that makes me very uncomfortable. I honestly don't know why. Because any initially existing privacy policies will be undermined gradually, or simply changed wholesale without notice, after enough data has been gathered, to allow that data to be sold to insurers and other "interested parties"?
amelius 7y ago
Can't this be done using an accelerometer? Also, is this tech different from how a Wacom tablet works?
- pjc50 7y ago
  Not really, you can't tell where all the fingers are from a wrist-mounted accelerometer. Wacom tablets are, I thought, capacitive touch? This is a lot closer to a Magic Leap in terms of gesture recognition usage, although that's a different technology again - IR camera like a Kinect.
IHLayman 7y ago
Inching toward wearable millimeter-wave devices makes me pretty nervous about long term cancer effects. 5Ghz is pretty safe, but 140GHz? See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18666810 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18666810 for a study on the effects of .1 THz (100 GHz) effect on lymphocytes, but I don't see a followup, and this is from 2008... so I don't know if I should bed worried or not but it gives me pause.
- CamperBob2 7y ago
  You can pretty much find pubmed links to prove the world rests on a series of turtles. Worry when some of these "studies" (scare quotes intentional) are actually replicated.
  - amelius 7y ago
    Unfair as the cited study seems pretty well designed. And they used only 0.03 mW per cm2, and the exposure time was on the order of only a few hours to a day.
    - CamperBob2 7y ago
      Then it should be easy to replicate. Citation needed, as the Wikipedians like to say.
      - amelius 7y ago
        Yeah, but until we have those results, caution is warranted. That we should stop replicating studies was never implied.
        CamperBob2 7y ago
        Caution would be warranted if there were an underlying physical interaction or principle that suggests a mechanism of action. There's not. Non-ionizing radiation is non-ionizing. "Radiation-induced low-frequency collective vibrational modes" isn't a thing, except to the extent that it is the operating principle behind a tea kettle. And in any event, the skin depth at these frequencies is measured in fractions of a millimeter. There are even microwave weapons that take advantage of that (Raytheon's ADS comes to mind).
nerpderp82 7y ago
> The new silicon radar can see through your clothes and has a range of up to 10 meters and a resolution of 15 millimeters. That combination lend it to another potential application, vital signs monitoring. How about some adtech that detect when, ads really pique my attention... Another component in the Total Skinner Box.

37 points by godelmachine 7y ago

Sounds like Google Soli. https://atap.google.com/soli/ https://atap.google.com/soli/ I’m waiting for the Amazon Echo breakthrough device that puts the technology in the hands of 100 million people.

hirundo 7y ago

Seems like a good fit for air typing. https://www.slashgear.com/air-type-aims-to-let-you-type-without-a-keyboard-at-all-15337338/ https://www.slashgear.com/air-type-aims-to-let-you-type-with...

jpm_sd 7y ago
https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-10-12 https://dilbert.com/strip/1994-10-12

gojomo 7y ago

I want one in a tooth, imaging the motions of the most articulate part of the body – the tongue – so that I can give subvocal commands to my devices.

yeahitslikethat 7y ago
This tech exists. The navy seals use electronic bands around their necks to detect muscle movements, convert them to sounds and broadcast to the team.
- sawjet 7y ago
  is this related to bone-conduction microphones?

ActorNightly 7y ago

Wouldn't it detect only things that it sees in the line of sight? So if you have one hand behind the other one, it won't see it?

Loughla 7y ago

>Philips suggests it could be used to monitor the physical state of drivers to prevent accidents from medical emergencies or fatigue, among other scenarios. I'm not sure why, but that makes me very uncomfortable. I honestly don't know why.

JadeNB 7y ago
> > Philips suggests it could be used to monitor the physical state of drivers to prevent accidents from medical emergencies or fatigue, among other scenarios. > I'm not sure why, but that makes me very uncomfortable. I honestly don't know why. Because any initially existing privacy policies will be undermined gradually, or simply changed wholesale without notice, after enough data has been gathered, to allow that data to be sold to insurers and other "interested parties"?

amelius 7y ago

Can't this be done using an accelerometer? Also, is this tech different from how a Wacom tablet works?

pjc50 7y ago
Not really, you can't tell where all the fingers are from a wrist-mounted accelerometer. Wacom tablets are, I thought, capacitive touch? This is a lot closer to a Magic Leap in terms of gesture recognition usage, although that's a different technology again - IR camera like a Kinect.

IHLayman 7y ago

Inching toward wearable millimeter-wave devices makes me pretty nervous about long term cancer effects. 5Ghz is pretty safe, but 140GHz? See https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18666810 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18666810 for a study on the effects of .1 THz (100 GHz) effect on lymphocytes, but I don't see a followup, and this is from 2008... so I don't know if I should bed worried or not but it gives me pause.

CamperBob2 7y ago
You can pretty much find pubmed links to prove the world rests on a series of turtles. Worry when some of these "studies" (scare quotes intentional) are actually replicated.
- amelius 7y ago
  Unfair as the cited study seems pretty well designed. And they used only 0.03 mW per cm2, and the exposure time was on the order of only a few hours to a day.
  - CamperBob2 7y ago
    Then it should be easy to replicate. Citation needed, as the Wikipedians like to say.
    - amelius 7y ago
      Yeah, but until we have those results, caution is warranted. That we should stop replicating studies was never implied.
      - CamperBob2 7y ago
        Caution would be warranted if there were an underlying physical interaction or principle that suggests a mechanism of action. There's not. Non-ionizing radiation is non-ionizing. "Radiation-induced low-frequency collective vibrational modes" isn't a thing, except to the extent that it is the operating principle behind a tea kettle. And in any event, the skin depth at these frequencies is measured in fractions of a millimeter. There are even microwave weapons that take advantage of that (Raytheon's ADS comes to mind).

nerpderp82 7y ago

> The new silicon radar can see through your clothes and has a range of up to 10 meters and a resolution of 15 millimeters. That combination lend it to another potential application, vital signs monitoring. How about some adtech that detect when, ads really pique my attention... Another component in the Total Skinner Box.