To get your devices to stop talking, Apple wants you to wave at them | Lotal Ghana

 To get your devices to stop talking, Apple wants you to wave at them

 

In the future, you could be able to raise your hand to pause everything, salute your HomePod to increase the volume, or utilize HomeKit to close your smart curtains with a broad motion.

 

 

 

Being deeply ingrained in the Apple ecosystem has many benefits, but it's easy to find yourself surrounded by Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple TV 4K, and other products. Because it's unlikely that you'll be watching or listening to audio or video on all of them at once, almost every gadget is waiting for you to say, "Hello, Siri."

 

 

 

A recently made public patent application demonstrates how Apple is considering how to make its ecosystem easier to use overall. In a condition known as "Multi-Device Gesture Control," you can, in fact, wave your arm to muffle everything.

 

 

 

But it actually describes you doing this while waving an arm that is attached to an Apple Watch.

 

 

 

The patent application states that the electronic device can effectively provide gesture control for several other devices by mapping a finite set of user gestures to a particular set of gesture-control elements for each of the numerous other devices. "In this approach, a single gesture might potentially control a wide range of operations on a wide range of devices."

 

 

 

Setting this up might take some time, but you could make it such that when you raise your hand, each device responds in a unique way. Raising your hand as you enter a room causes Barry White to begin playing on the HomePod, the smart blinds to close, and the smart lights to transform into a beautiful scene.

 

 

 

Even if you just make one gesture, the blinds can be configured to perceive it as a command to open or close. The lights change to a specific setting.

 

 

 

Moreover, a device may use a shortcut to choose a specific Apple Music playlist.

 

 

 

The goal of Apple is not simply "gesture control," but rather "a finite set of gestures observable at a first electronic device" that may be used to activate any action the user desires.

 

 

 

The crucial part is that "first electrical device." To recognize gestures, at least one Apple device must be able to detect them and properly transmit them. This does not mean that every Apple device needs to have a camera.

 

 

 

As usual, Apple's patent requests focus more on how something might be accomplished than on the precise use to which it might be put.

 

 

 

However, the bulk of this patent application is focused on how the "first device"—"such as a smart watch or other wearable device, a smartphone, or the like"—can identify a gesture.

 

 

 

The solution is to employ "a Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) sensor or an ultra-wide band (UWB) sensor." The system might use "an image sensor paired with another device" because it's possible that one of your devices is glancing in your direction.

 

 

 

Another problem is that the user might desire more precise control, which requires the Apple Watch or other wearable gadget to present additional options. However, Apple claims that gesture detection is the major focus of the patent application and can also be done with "inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors, such as an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer."

 

 

 

To make its patent application as comprehensive as possible, Apple additionally includes "other sensors, such as electromyography (EMG) sensors."

 

To get your devices to stop talking, Apple wants you to wave at them

Ali Moin is one of four inventors included on the patent application, several of whom have experience with machine learning technologies for categorizing biosignals.