control

There's a school of thought that says consumers have been secretly trained in the ways of gesture control for years, starting with laptop touch pads, then smartphone screens, and even the motion-controlled Nintendo Wii. Gesture controls, whether hands-on, via a screen or input pad, or hands-off, via camera control, are now everywhere, including televisions, game consoles, and PCs.

Hands-on gesture control has moved far beyond iOS and Android devices, with an entire new operating system, Windows 8, practically built around multifinger swiping, either on a touch screen, or via one of the increasing number of oversize touch pads these … Read more

PARIS -- LeWeb's focus this year on "the Internet of things" this year brought Net-enabled door locks, houseplant monitors, and footstep loggers to the conference stage. But the gadget that caught the most attention was a remote-controlled quadcopter.

Quadcopters are all the rage these days, popularized best by the Parrot AR.Drone. Here at LeWeb, startup Team BlackSheep showed its take on the tech with a model that's remotely piloted by an operator who sees what's going on from a camera mounted on the drone itself.

Raphael Pirker, founder of the company, piloted a TBS … Read more

PARIS -- Startup Interaxon today announced it'll ship a $199 headset called the Muse next spring that will let people use their brainwaves to directly control videogames and other computing operations.

Interaxon Chief Executive Ariel Garten announced the Muse at the LeWeb conference here, and she showed off one application she thinks direct brainwave input will help people: infusing e-mails with emotion.

"This is the first though-controlled device that's stylish and easy to wear," Garten said of the Muse.

Using LeWeb founder Loic Le Meur as a guinea pig, she showed an application she called Emotype … Read more

One way to access or activate some display- and window-related features in OS X is to use screen hot corners, which you can set up to activate the desired feature by moving your mouse to the respective corner. For example, if you wish to manually activate the screensaver, then you can bind this to a hot corner and then move your mouse there to always activate the screensaver.

Hot corner features can be set up in the Desktop & Screen Saver system preferences by clicking the "Hot Corners..." button at the bottom of the Screen Saver tab, and … Read more

Elliptic Labs wants to bring the touchless gesture controls seen in the science-fiction film "Minority Report" to everyday consumer electronic devices, starting with Windows 8.

The company -- a Norwegian university spinout with offices in Oslo and Silicon Valley -- unveiled a set of tools to help consumer electronic companies enable touchless controls in their products. These would be similar to the kind of gesture controls seen with the Xbox 360 Kinect and in certain smart televisions like a few models from Samsung Electronics, but presumably would work more smoothly.

That's because the Elliptic device won't … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Scosche has been manufacturing car stereo dashboard mounting kits, wire harnesses, and installation accessories for so many years, but it has never offered a car stereo receiver of its own...until now.

At the 2012 SEMA Show, Scosche showed off the SCDBTA60 Car Stereo Receiver. This unit features an internal four-channel amplifier that outputs a maximum of 40 watts per channel and three preamp outputs for adding external amps. It's got a CD player and an SD card slot, and can connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth (HFP and A2DP), USB, or an auxiliary input. By itself, it'… Read more

Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital had the bright idea that, since kids with anger-control problems tend to resist psychotherapy but enjoy video games, the researchers should develop a game that sneakily helps kids practice emotion-control skills -- and in the process perhaps reduces the need for medication.

The game, called RAGE Control (short for Regulate and Gain Emotional Control), employs a finger heart rate monitor; users with elevated heart rates actually lose the ability to shoot enemy spaceships. Researchers say the idea is to teach kids to better control their emotional responses -- and specifically to reduce outbursts of … Read more

One of Apple's newer features in OS X is the Dictation service that was introduced in Mountain Lion, which allows you to speak phrases and have the system enter it as text in entry fields. While useful in certain situations, some people who have tried using the service have found it to be unavailable on their systems.

When accessing the "Dictation & Speech" system preferences, instead of being able to click the on or off buttons, these options are grayed out, even in administrative accounts that ought to have full access to system services.

The Dictation service … Read more

Keeping kids safe while using an Internet-connected computer is an ongoing concern and a challenge for parents and technology companies alike. To help make it easier for parents to see and control what kids are doing on a PC, Microsoft has added some new parental control features to Windows 8.

Family Safety, as it's now called in Windows 8, can send activity reports via e-mail, set Web filtering levels, monitor and restrict apps from the Windows Store, and set time limits. Here's how to set up and use Family Safety for Windows 8:

Turning on Family Safety When … Read more