Google wants users to control devices with hand gestures

Jun 3, 2015 11:25 GMT  ·  By

Project Soli is a new project from Google that aims to integrate radar technology into a small chip that can be used to track hand motions, and from the looks of it, the engineers are using Ubuntu.

Before getting too excited about yet another Google project, you should remember that Google had a lot of projects that weren't all that successful. The company has made its share of mistakes, but we can only hope that Soli is not one of them.

From what Google has shared until now, the Soli chip sends radar waves and interprets the results, and in this case, its hand motions. The technology is small enough that it can be implemented on almost any device you could think of, like a smartwatch or a phone. It's unclear at which stage of development Soli is right now, but we can tell you that the engineers are making use of Ubuntu to do their work.

Project Soli feels like something from the future

The first reaction people will get when they see Project Soli in action is probably disbelief. The chip emits radar waves, and the software reads the results. These have been refined to take advantage of hand motion, which can be used to perform various actions.

"Project Soli is developing a new interaction sensor using radar technology. The sensor can track sub-millimeter motions at high speed and accuracy. It fits onto a chip, can be produced at scale and built into small devices and everyday objects" is noted in the video from Google.

Keen eyes will notice that Google engineers are using Ubuntu in their research and production, which in itself is a cool thing. On the other hand, that's not all that surprising if we keep in mind that Linux is usually the OS of choice for engineers and scientists.