Microsoft Patents Hand Gestures System for Tablet PCs

Microsoft is becoming more and more interested in what tablet PCs have to offer to users, and the latest patent applications it filed confirm that.

One of these refers to a system of hand gestures that would allow users to get the most out of their devices.

The Redmond-based software giant appears set to bring real-time hand-gesturing to tablets and to other devices that feature touch screens.

Unfortunately, the company did not offer specific info on the invention in the patent application summary, as PatentBold explains in a recent post.

Moreover, the software giant does not offer details on the key/critical elements of the invention, nor does it explain the main purpose of the invention.

However, Microsoft does state that the system’s “sole purpose is to present some concepts disclosed herein in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description that is presented later.”

According to the patent application’s summary, there's "a need to provide simple, accurate, fast and computationally inexpensive methods of object and hand pose recognition for many applications.”

The idea is to enable the user to drive an application that is being displayed on the tablet screen or projected onto a table top through hand gestures.

Additionally, Microsoft is looking into finding ways of “accurately discriminate between events” when the user’s hand touches the screen and events when the hand only hovers above the display.

“A random decision forest is trained to enable recognition of hand poses and objects and optionally also whether those hand poses are touching or not touching a display surface,” Microsoft explains.

“The random decision forest uses image features such as appearance, shape and optionally stereo image features. In some cases, the training process is cost aware. The resulting recognition system is operable in real-time.”

The Redmond-based company plans on providing additional info on the invention later. At the moment, it appears that the giant is planning on bringing the system to tablets powered by Windows, as well as to its Surface device.