Gesture-Based Technology

Minority Report
I've been doing research on emerging technologies for 2014 and the one that stands out more than others is gesture-based technology.  When the movie Minority Report came out in 2002, I saw how cool the future could be as Tom Cruise saved the word (I think), interacting with the machines around him using gestures.  With what I've learned,  perhaps movie director, Steven Spielberg may have been on to something.

Making life easier
We've all experienced the situation where you're in the kitchen cooking,  hands are covered with ingredients, and your cell phone rings.  Swiping your finger across the screen only gets the phone dirty; so by the time you wash your hands and answer the phone, the call went to voice mail.  Soon some of life's minor inconveniences with the machines we've come to rely will be dealt with using gestures-based technology.  You'll be able to answer that annoying phone call and put it into speaker mode with a wave of the hand.

Products
Some gesture-based products in the market today gaining momentum are Microsoft's Kinect, and the gesture-based computing product,  Leap.  I believe gesture-based remote control for TV will be mainstream in a few years.  There are more products on the way serving industries such as education, military, travel, gaming, and telecommnuncation.


Education
Having spent the last 10 years developing products for the education industry, I have a strong interest in what role this technology will play in education.  The thought of students using gestures to interact with lessons, and materials seems far more engaging than the existing model of listening to a teacher lecture.  I would imagine team project work that utilized gesture-based technology would improve student outcomes as well.  These are just hypothetical thoughts that need to be proved, but the idea seems encouraging.

Where go from here?
I believe various industries are going to all find ways to leverage gesture-based technology in the coming years and this will open huge opportunities for start-ups everywhere to provide the technological products and platforms to make it all work.