When it comes to tech it’s no secret that the Japanese give the rest of the world a good licking, but now they’ve really taken that idea too far with research currently on-going to develop of a tongue motion-capture interface for the Microsoft Kinect!
A team at the University of Electro-Communications in Tokyo, Japan is currently showing off its progress on the interface which uses the motion sensing Kinect, a gadget typically used by Xbox 360 gamers, which pinpoints features of the face including the nose, eyes and mouth and that all-important tongue. Once the tongue is captured by the sensitive tech it can be tracked by the software, which on screen kind of looks a little like some kind of Space Invaders game!
This game is actually to encourage the subject to aim their tongue into various positions in the direction of symbols on the screen shooting them down, making the player look pretty daft. But as funny as it looks, that’s not the technology’s intended use is a most to train people who have motor function and speech difficulties or lack other oral skills – take that as you will!
Despite needing a bit of work on when it comes to the preciseness of the motion capture, these Japanese developments are a bit of a break through, since previous study into oral and tongue functions required the tongue to be hooked up to sensitive machinery – and this once again instates Microsoft’s Kinect as one of the most important and influential gadgets of the modern age of technology.
In previous week’s Only in Japan we featured the Speech Jammer – a voice repelling gun which actually confuses the brain into making its victim tongue tied!
Let us know your thoughts on our comments below or via our @Gadget_Helpline Twitter page or Official Facebook group.