As an independent developer, I'm always on the lookout for emerging technologies that open up new opportunities for creative projects. Lately I've become fascinated by the potential of AI System-on-Chips (SoCs) to power intuitive gesture-based applications. These specialized processor designs promise all sorts of exciting possibilities for building apps driven by human motion.
While I've experimented with gesture recognition before using cloud APIs, the localized processing capability of AI SoCs is a real game changer. Being able to interpret gestures directly on the device in real-time, without an internet connection, unlocks all sorts of new interaction paradigms. Imagine controlling a drone simply by waving your hands, or manipulating immersive VR environments just with subtle fingertip motions. The lag-free response enabled by on-board AI chips could really blow traditional input methods out of the water.
From a development perspective, AI SoCs eliminate a lot of the plumbing work needed to ferry data back and forth between devices and remote servers. All the neural net heavy lifting happens on silicon, so you can focus more on crafting innovative user experiences rather than networking code. Not to mention, keeping data localized helps address growing privacy concerns many users have about biometric data getting shared in the cloud. For security-minded or niche applications, that protection from prying eyes could be a major selling point.
Of course, taking full advantage of embedded AI processing does require some adjustment to workflow and thinking compared to cloud-based models. Resource constraints on chip mean algorithms need careful optimizing, while new considerations like thermal design come into play. But meeting those constraints opens up a massive installed base of lower-power client devices like smartphones,VR headsets and smart home gadgets. The addressable market makes it worth pushing the boundaries of efficiency.
To get practical experience with AI SoCs for gesture control, I decided to build a basic hand tracking app running entirely on device. After testing various SDKs, I settled on employing Intel's OpenVINO toolkit to optimize and deploy a pretrained hand pose estimation model onto their Movidius Neural Compute Stick 2. Getting acquainted with tools like Model Optimizer and deploying to the Myriad X MA2485 device was a fun learning process. While the accuracy was crude compared to desktop CNNs, I was amazed it could run at all on such low-powered hardware.
From there, I added basic OpenCV camera processing to feed live video frames into the model for inferences. Then via a Python serial interface, gestures detected by the model could control simple on-screen graphics in real-time. Waving, pointing and clenching produced intuitive effects. It was thrilling seeing that level of interactivity achievable without phones, consoles or PCs - just a small USB stick jammed with AI smarts. That proof of concept sold me on AI SoCs potential for enabling new kinds of embedded vision apps.
Naturally, there's still progress to be made before gesture UIs powered by SoCs could reach phones and consumer devices en masse. Key challenges like improving accuracy in noisy real world conditions, extending recognition to complex multi-finger poses, and enhancing energy efficiency all need industry-wide efforts. But following leaders like Intel, Nvidia and HiSilicon pushing the limits of what's achievable with specialized silicon, I'm optimistic those obstacles will continue falling in coming years.
For startup ventures or solo hackers, ease of development and lower costs relative to cloud should make AI SoCs highly appealing too. Why rely on distant servers controlled by others when you can build distinctive gesture experiences directly into the devices people use everyday? That kind of seamless integration, empowered by accelerated local AI, is what I think will truly captivate users and establish new categories of intuitive interaction we haven't even conceived yet. In that exciting future, opportunity is limitless for those willing to leverage the tools and pave new pathways. Consider me first in line to spark inspiration with the gestures of things to come!