Welcome to Project Soli

Google ATAP
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2015–2019
YouTube
5.6M views · 11 years ago · demo · dated

Google's ATAP team introduces Project Soli, a small radar sensor that tracks fine hand and finger motions in the air. The video shows tiny gestures such as rubbing fingers together replacing knobs, buttons and sliders on devices.

HN people point to it as the first look at radar-based gesture input, and later as the origin of the Soli chip that shipped in the Pixel 4.

“The radar chip is especially interesting.”
Input devices & novel interfacesHCI research
#projectsoli#gesturecontrol#radar#googleatap#touchlessinput

24 comments from Hacker News

m
@melling2019 · in “Soli”
Google finally ships a research project in a real product and people don’t seem to understand the usefulness. Human nature for some reason often devolves to “what’s the point?” Here’s the 2015 announcement. There’s a lot of potential. Maybe we’d all benefit from “imagine what’s now possible “ ▶ this video
RecommendsView on HN
w
@wener2016 · in “Google Project Soli”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
RecommendsView on HN
a
@awjr2015 · in “Welcome to Project Soli - Google ATAP Team”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
RecommendsView on HN
m
@mmastrac2015 · in “Google ATAP: Welcome to Project Soli [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
RecommendsView on HN
c
@cbolton2019 · in “Google Announces Pixel 4”
The radar chip is especially interesting. I remember being intrigued when it was presented by the ATAP team years ago: ▶ this video The team showed an impressive amount of cool stuff back then, it's nice to see one of these projects shipping on a flagship product. There's more info here on how it's used: link EDIT: found the original presentation: link . I think the touch sensitive cloth project also made it into a few products.
CitesView on HN
j
@jpalomaki2019 · in “Google wins U.S. approval for radar-based hand motion sensor”
Video from Google about the technology (2015): ▶ this video
CitesView on HN
m
@melling2017 · in “Introducing Oculus Go, Plus Santa Cruz Updates”
In my dreams the keyboard disappears. My eyes, or fingers, move the cursor, I can speak interactively with the computer, gesture, etc. Can fingers/hands be tracked sufficiently to provide an accurate soft keyboard? ▶ this video
CitesView on HN
m
@melling2017 · in “The future of the human-computer interface?”
How old are you? It’s really not that hard to imagine the keyboard being replaced by one, or a combination, of technologies in the next decade or two. Voice has gotten dramatically better in the past few years. Another decade? There are also gesture technologies: ▶ this video Anyway, if you’ve got 3 or 4 decades of life, you still think we won’t have sufficient advances to replace the keyboard?
CitesView on HN
m
@melling2017 · in “Dell 38 inch UltraSharp monitor”
Voice, eye tacking, and gesturing don’t offer possibilities? ▶ this video link And yes, if you’re clicking away in a room of programmers, it won’t work for you, but with a Hololens I’ll find a quiet location.
CitesView on HN
m
@melling2017 · in “Model F Keyboards project – Bringing back the buckling spring keyboard”
How about a little more innovation in keyboards? It is 30 years later. Split keyboards? link Tenting capable? Add a Soli chip? ▶ this video
CitesView on HN
m
@melling2016 · in “Blind Apple engineer is transforming the tech world at only 22”
i'm disappointed that we haven't made more progress with voice interfaces. Many people are happy with the keyboard/mouse as their primary input devices but combined with subtle gestures like you might get with Google's Soli and we should get a better user interface for everyone. ▶ this video
CitesView on HN
m
@melling2016 · in “SignAloud: Gloves That Translate Sign Language into Text and Speech”
Someone could devise a more subtle set of movements for text entry. Google's Soli would recognize small movements: ▶ this video There are others: link
CitesView on HN