SINGAPORE — It has been a little more than a decade since the Tom Cruise movie Minority Report showed how you could — in Hollywood’s idea of the future — work on your computer without being stuck at your desk. In the movie, the protagonist Captain John Anderton, was seen working on applications and moving documents around with gloved hands.

Today, gesture control, while already here, is still eons away from the scenes in Minority Report. Smart televisions such as the ones from Samsung let you manipulate the screen by waving your hands, or zoom in on a picture by “grabbing” the corners with both hands then pulling them apart. Microsoft’s Kinect for the Xbox 360 has been letting gamers play without the need for controllers for the past few years. As Microsoft puts it, “your body is the controller”. But gesture is a halting, lagging experience at best, and plain annoying at worst.

Today, a Singapore company is entering the field of gesture control. And I am blown away by what little I have seen. Intellect Motion is a local company, funded by Ruvento Ventures under the Media Development Authority’s (MDA) i.Jam programme. The product, dubbed the iMotion, uses “new technology to let users control games and work applications using a kind of Minority Report-type glove interface”, explained Mr Slava Solonitsyn, Partner at Ruvento Ventures and Board Advisor on Intellect Motion.

“The device uses light markers to capture video stream — using standard video cameras such as the webcam — and parses our algorithm to recognise and reconstruct, basically, the movements of your hand,” said Mr Solonitsyn. “This is 10 times faster than Kinect (for Xbox 360), and 20 times more accurate. And you can control games such as a shooter on a PC with your hand(s) instead of using a mouse and keyboard.”

Mr Solonitsyn also claims the iMotion is six times faster and 10 times more accurate than the new Kinect for the upcoming Xbox One console.

The IDM Jump-start and Mentor (i.JAM) programme, managed by the MDA’s Interactive Digital Media Programme Office (IDMPO), aims to drive innovation and entrepreneurship by supporting start-ups and individuals with breakthrough ideas that can be developed into innovative products and services.

According to Product Engineer and Chief Marketing Officer Shruthi Komandur, three Light Emitting Diodes (LED) triangulate the position of the cursor for a more responsive and accurate pinpointing of the cursor. Each of the diodes are 2cm in diameter but can be placed closer together to allow for a slimmer, more streamlined design, said Ms Komandur.

The kicker is this device can work with any gadget with a camera. That includes the ones on mobile devices such as your tablet or smartphone. You can project your mobile device onto a large screen, say your TV via HDMI, and start playing your favourite games, check your social media accounts or even do some work off your TV off your couch.

With a typing capability similar to Swype, you will be able to write without a physical keyboard, said Ms Komandur. The iMotion will include force-feedback to add that realism to gaming as well. Developers do not need to code specially for the glove, and it can work with existing games and apps. “All you have to do is install the iMotion driver,” said Mr Solonitsyn. The company will be releasing a Software Developer Kit (SDK) for developers keen on building apps for the iMotion on mobile devices. And, unlike the 1.8m-minimum distance for the current Kinect, you only need 30cm of space to use this device.

Learning how to use the device is easy. Within minutes, I could use the device to click-and-drag, double-click and frag enemies in a first-person shooter game. It can also be programmed to recognise gestures, and by covering the diodes, to perform hot key functions.

To get users involved in the project, Mr Solonitsyn said the company will be asking for user feedback on the final build of the iMotion. From July 1 until the end of the month, you can go to Intellect Motion’s Facebook page (www.facebook.com/intellectmotion) and tell the designers what kind of product you would like to buy. The product (picture) is only a prototype and feels like it. The rubber holding strap is scratchy and too tight, and the device looks like it is made of cardboard. Intellect Motion will invite the people behind winning ideas to tour the company and see the development process, as well as implement the ideas into the final build.

The company will be launching the product on Kickstarter, the crowdsource funding, in August to raise US$76,000 (S$96,000) for production. Intellect Motion hopes to ship the product by Christmas and will retail it at US$49.

With this motion control glove available, all we need is for devices to project screens and keyboards into the air for the true Minority Report experience.