Gmail Motion April Fool’s joke becomes reality with Kinect

By Jeffrey Van Camp April 4, 2011

ict-brings-gmail-motion-to-life — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Google had some of the best jokes on April Fools’ day. One of those was Gmail Motion, a new technology allowing users to write emails and send them using complicated, full-body motions. Having some fun on his own, a researcher at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies used a Microsoft Kinect sensor to make Gmail Motion a reality. The scary part is, it only took him a few hours. The team is calling this Gmail Motion recreation SLOOW, which stands for Software Library Optimizing Obligatory Waving. This is also a joke, as the lab’s actual Kinect toolkit has the acronym FAAST.

You may remember the ICT. In late December, a video circulated showing this same man, Evan A. Suma, playing World of Warcraft entirely with body gestures on a modified Kinect.

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Kids, you may want to apply to get into this lab. They spend their days playing with Kinects and their coffee tables are actually giant capacitive touchscreens. So cool.

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Jeffrey Van Camp

Former Digital Trends Contributor

As DT's Deputy Editor, Jeff helps oversee editorial operations at Digital Trends. Previously, he ran the site's…

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