When you think about the amount of time human beings have been around, it’s an absolute stroke of luck that we, the ones around today, get to witness so many advances in technology. The last few hundred years have been consistently increasing in the frequency of world-changing inventions and concepts. Technology in the last fifty, hell… the last five years has changed the world in astonishing ways, and we’re looking at another watershed moment now as some clever designers went ahead and brought – arguably – one of the oldest and most sarcastic expressions into the technological age. They’ve gone ahead and made “The World’s Tiniest Violin”
Shared in a recent post by Gizmodo, the world’s tiniest violin was brought to life thanks to Google’s new, and incredibly compact, gesture recognition system called Project Soli. Using a form of radar, the Soli can recognize hand gestures and translate them into digital instruction without any tactile hardware needed. As part of a Design I/O project, which we can only desperately hope is lead by at least one person named Dr. Wisenheimer, the frequency and intensity of the gestures above the Soli pad are translated to violin music. This results in a IRL version of one of the oldest sarcastic expressions you can perform when someone is complaining about something they really shouldn’t. The really cool thing is that Project Soli means so much more than just taunting your friends in the most advanced way possible.
While the examples in Google’s video currently appear limited to directional pads, volume control, and button presses, Project Soli feels like it has the potential to really change the way we interact with technology. Imagine, for instance, a more advanced Soli system used in conjunction with tangible holographic displays. You know where I’m going with this, right? We’re all gonna be computing like Tony Stark someday.
Not that anything other than Stark computing is needed, but what are some other uses for this sort of tech you’d like to see? Let’s discuss in the comments below!
Images: Miramax Films
