In previous entires we covered some of Google’s April Fools’ hoaxes, including the virtual breathalizer added to Google Voice and finger aerobics added by Google Chrome. Gmail Motion, however, is a different prank in one special way: it’s been made real, thanks to Evan Suma and the team at Mark Bolas’ MxR Lab.
The MxR lab was quick on their response, creating a real-life version of the fake Google product using their existing technology within just a few hours. MxR’s technology, FAAST (Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit), uses the Xbox 360 Kinect sensor as a medium by which other interfaces, including operating system interfaces, can be controlled. Spoofing on their own name, they developed a solution to the fact that Gmail Motion “wasn’t working” on their systems and titled that solution “SLOOW” (Software Library Optimizing Obligatory Waving). You’ll understand the obligatory waving more fully after watching the video demonstration below.
The Mark Bolas’ MxR lab is a part of the University of Southern California Institute of Creative Technology. FAAST became popular on the web when a December 2010 video was released demonstrating how you could play World of Warcraft with your Kinect. The technology is free for anyone to download at the project website. Its this exact sort of creative spatial recognition use that Google was spoofing on with its Gmail Motion project, and this response from the spatial technology group takes the joke a step further by demonstrating how possible – even easy – the concept of physical controls can be.
[via Tom’s Guide]
