Microsoft Turns Human Body Into Antenna

By
published


Microsoft Research presented some interesting technologies at the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2011). One of the papers receiving one of the 13 best-paper awards was Your Noise is My Command: Sensing Gestures Using the Body as an Antenna.

In this case, the body isn't transmitting, but instead is picking up electromagnetic noise from objects the body or hand is close to and feeding it to a laptop in a backpack for interpretation. The paper's abstract describes it this way: "Fortunately, home environments frequently offer a signal that is unique to locations and objects within the home: electromagnetic noise. In this work, we use the body as a receiving antenna and leverage this noise for gestural interaction."

I wonder what the Parliamentary Assembly Committee on the Environment will think about this? See the article on their recommendations, including creation of "wave-free" zones, elsewhere in this week's RF Report.

Doug Lung
Doug Lung
Contributor

Doug Lung is one of America's foremost authorities on broadcast RF technology. As vice president of Broadcast Technology for NBCUniversal Local, H. Douglas Lung leads NBC and Telemundo-owned stations’ RF and transmission affairs, including microwave, radars, satellite uplinks, and FCC technical filings. Beginning his career in 1976 at KSCI in Los Angeles, Lung has nearly 50 years of experience in broadcast television engineering. Beginning in 1985, he led the engineering department for what was to become the Telemundo network and station group, assisting in the design, construction and installation of the company’s broadcast and cable facilities. Other projects include work on the launch of Hawaii’s first UHF TV station, the rollout and testing of the ATSC mobile-handheld standard, and software development related to the incentive auction TV spectrum repack. A longtime columnist for TV Technology, Doug is also a regular contributor to IEEE Broadcast Technology. He is the recipient of the 2023 NAB Television Engineering Award. He also received a Tech Leadership Award from TV Tech publisher Future plc in 2021 and is a member of the IEEE Broadcast Technology Society and the Society of Broadcast Engineers.