Pioneer Announces Gesture-controlled Car Navigation at CEATEC show, Japan

I don’t normally go in for wholesale liftery of news stories but this is such a slice of sexy exotica from Pioneer in Japan, that I simply had to lift it and show you. It is from Tech On! Tech & Industry Analysis From Asia’a website and just in case, should they spot this here and tell me off, this was lifted in good faith to educate a very keen audience in the UK. No intent is held to plaigiarise or fail to credit the author Tadashi Nakmichi (I wonder if he any relation of the legendary Nakamichi audio people?) Anyway, huge respect to Tadashi-san but here’s his whole story&;.it’s about Pioneer being a leader rather than a ‘me too’ company and now, you can start nagging the living hell out of Pioneer via the UK operation to get this technology over here, rather than purely Japan home-market. Make some noise Talk Audio! Gett’em to get it HEREfor US!!
I DO so love gesture control. Normally it’s used on other drivers&;.here’s the copy from the Far East:
Pioneer Corp announced a car navigation system that can be controlled by moving a hand to the front of its display, across the display, etc, at CEATEC JAPAN 2012, which runs from Oct 2 to 6, 2012, in Chiba Prefecture, Japan.

Pioneer calls the user interface “Air Gesture.” This time, the company announced the latest models of its “Raku Navi” series of car navigation systems whose prices are set for general consumers.

When a hand is moved to the front of the screen, the system shows (1) a window showing the name of the music being played and (2) frequently used commands such as “Set your home as a destination,” “Set one of the frequently visited places as a destination” and “Skip the music being played.” When the hand moves away from the screen, those commands disappear and a map is displayed on the entire screen.

Also, by moving a hand horizontally, a function that is preset by the user can be used without pressing a button. It is possible to set one of 10 functions including “Switch between navigation and AV functions” and “Skip the music being played/Playing the previous music.” For example, when a hand is moved to the left, the AV function is activated, and vice versa.

The sensor part that detects hand motions consists of two infrared-emitting parts and an infrared-receiving part between them. When a hand moves to the front of the sensor part, it is detected by the reflection of infrared light. And a horizontally moving hand is detected by, for example, changing the timings of infrared emissions from the right and left infrared-emitting parts so that it becomes possible to tell if the hand is positioned in the right side or the left side, Pioneer said.

Pioneer will start to release six models equipped with the Air Gesture in mid October 2012. Two of them are embedded types (“AVIC-MRZ009” and “AVIC-MRZ007”), and the other four are portable types (“AVIC-MRP009,” “AVIC-MRP008,” “AVIC-MRP007” and “AVIC-MRP006”).
And here is the link to check the original article and the rest of their site I wonder if they will spot a wee UK spike?
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