'In-air' hand gestures to control smartphones

How does it feel when your smartphone begins to ring all of a sudden during a key client presentation? Embarrassed? Help is here.

Researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle have developed a way to control your smartphone with in-air hand gestures.

The system called SideSwipe lets you interact with the phone without using touchscreens or physical buttons, media reports said.

This is how it works.

When a user waves his hand over the phone, the movement of the hand disturbs the signal between the phone's receiver and antenna.

This vibration is captured by SideSwipe and used for recognising gestures.

"We developed an algorithm to convert the GSM pulses to a continuous signal that can be used for gesture recognition," the team behind SideSwipe posted on its website.

SideSwipe will have three gesture control modes.

The first gesture directed down towards the phone to put it to silent; the swipe right gesture to send a text (pre-defined), and finally the tap gesture to decline an incoming call, reports added.