During the latest edition of its I/O conference, Google made its interest in wearable technology very clear. One of the most striking examples on stage was Jacquard, a project that aims to create fabrics with touch support. However, Jacquard is accompanied by an initiative with similar goals, called Project Soli. The idea here is to recognize the user's gestures "in the air" through a miniaturized radar, which detects slight disturbances and links them to specific commands in an interface.
It is supposed that 2014 was "the year of wearable devices", but the great impact of the available accessories hasn't fully materialized. Functions, formats, price… there's something at the bottom that still doesn't close about the many watches, bracelets, and sensors that made their way into conferences and keynotes. Some believe it's a matter of interfaces. If we think about it for a moment, smartwatches are almost smartphones in reduced size, since we have to touch their screen over and over to transmit our commands (unless their voice recognition is solid). Basically, that makes us think about redundancy. Companies insist that smartwatches and wearable devices in general are "complements" for the smartphone of the moment, but a much more intuitive method of use needs to be developed than what they offer today.
That's when Project Soli steps in. This creation from Google's ATAP group plans to implement a gesture recognition system based on a miniaturized radar. The technology works at a frequency of 60 GHz with a wavelength of five millimeters, and a range from 0.05 to 5 meters. The 60 GHz signal possesses the resolution needed to detect even the smallest movements in the user's fingers, and with the help of four receivers, its current hardware platform can handle noise and loss of precision. The rest of the work is the responsibility of the algorithms, and the developers in charge of creating applications around it. From scrolling to audio control, the examples Google gives in the video are quite logical, but it's easy to imagine that ideas won't stop there.
Being under ATAP's wing, it's practically impossible to calculate whether Google will launch a variant of Project Soli to the market, but it's a project too advanced to ignore. Wearable devices need all the help they can get, and the possibility of completely eliminating tactile interaction sounds much more powerful than we imagine.
