Motion-Sensing Technology: Expert Guide

Anyone who remembers the 2002 film Minority Report will recall being amazed by Tom Cruise's interaction with a computer of the future. Fast forward seven years and the control of technology using movement and physical gestures is now commonplace.

Apple's hugely successful iPhone is one gadget that has put motion-sensing technology into the palm of our hands, while the Nintendo Wii can claim the prize for the best-selling games console and the best-selling game of all time.

Here, we'll examine the new wave of handheld devices that can be tipped, shaken and turned to take our input, as well as larger systems such as Microsoft SecondLight that can be controlled with hand gestures. We'll also look at ways of interacting with multimedia content using gestures and some futuristic products we could be using in years to come.
 
Accelerometers
If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you will know that you can change the way the screen is displayed from landscape to portrait by turning the device. This is controlled by a component called the accelerometer. It essentially tells the iPhone which way is up by sensing its orientation. It measures the acceleration of movements in any direction and takes into account the Earth's gravitational pull to work out its orientation.

Communicating this to the device in real time enables your iPhone to display widescreen movies, as well as letting you play games in which you can control on-screen elements by tipping the device. The T-Mobile G1 or HTC Magic, both of which run the Google Android operating system, also use an accelerometer, as does the Nintendo Wii Remote.