Control TV with a wave - Not googlewave...

WASHINGTON - TOUCHSCREENS are so yesterday. Remote controls? So last century. The future is controlling your devices with a simple wave of the hand.

A wiggle of the fingers will change television channels or turn the volume up or down. In videogames, your movements will control your onscreen digital avatar. It's called 3D gesture recognition and while it may not be in stores this Christmas a number of technology companies are promising that it will be by next year.

Softkinetic, a Brussels-based software company, is one of the leaders in the gesture-control field and has teamed up with US semiconductor giant Texas Instruments and others to make this touchless vision of the future a reality. Besides TI, Softkinetic has forged partnerships with France's Orange Vallee for interactive TV, another Belgian firm, Optrima, a maker of 3D cameras and sensors, and with Connecting Technology, a French home automation company.

'On the consumer side you have three markets - television, videogames and personal computers,' said Softkinetic chief executive Michel Tombroff. 'The objective is to be on the consumer market at the end of next year, by Christmas, so people can buy these things.

'In the same way that the Nintendo Wii completely changed the way that people play videogames this 3D camera technology will allow us to completely transform the way people interact with television.'

US software giant Microsoft demonstrated a gesture recognition program called 'Project Natal' for its Xbox 360 videogame console in June and has announced plans to launch it next year. -- AFP