Raise your hand and pause the world. OK, we will just begin with music or movie.
Flutter, a gesture-recognition software for PCs, uses the webcam in devices such as laptops to interpret gestures and perform actions on the device without the user touching the keyboard, mouse or touchpad. It hopes to do to daily computing what Kinect did to gaming, at very low cost.
“Its first application allows users to play or pause music on Spotify and iTunes on Windows or Mac computers using a simple wave of hand,” says Flutter creator Navneet Dalal. “Most people play music in the background while browsing the Internet, coding or when they are away from computer. It is a hassle to play or pause music or change to next song. You need to bring the window into the foreground. Flutter allows users to control music in the background from one-six feet away from computer using simple gestures without taking the focus away from current window.”
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Dalal founded Flutter along with Mehul Nariyawala in 2010. They are now a six-people team. “Many naysayers thought it would be impossible to recognise gestures via a simple webcam and told us about Microsoft and its Xbox Kinect technology as a high-end depth camera and laser sensors. Many experts, including professors from top computer vision universities, thought it might be impossible,” they say.
Dalal has an extensive background in computer vision, while Nariyawala has an MBA from the University of Chicago.
They spent the first 18 months creating the technology that detects gestures using a simple webcam. “We built the most robust, responsive and efficient (in terms of computer resources) system for detecting gestures via simple webcam.”
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When Flutter was released, it took the Internet by storm. It worked well and represented a shift in the way people interact with devices. “Since then, we have continued to grow at a rapid pace,” says Nariyawala. “Originally, our application was only available for Mac OS X. We have been working at a furious pace to ship new platforms, gestures, and applications. Recently, we released the Windows version of Flutter, and in a few more weeks, we will be releasing more gestures.”
At present, Flutter is available for free at >http://flutterapp.com .