The Washington Post praises UW CSE’s WiSee technology:
“Imagine standing in your kitchen preparing dinner, while the TV magically turns on in the living room, the dimmer lights flicker into action, a Netflix movie queues up for your viewing pleasure and the air conditioning adjusts just so. All of that, with just a wave of the hand, a swipe of your finger or a flick of the wrist.
“That’s the technological promise of new WiSee technology, a new gesture-recognition technology being developed at the University of Washington that is able to transform slight changes in the frequency of wireless signals into specific actions.
“What makes WiSee technology all the more extraordinary is that it essentially repurposes existing wireless signals within your home or business—there’s no need to purchase new cameras or sensors to make it work. Your wireless-enabled devices are already communicating with each other using a part of the wireless spectrum that’s unseen and unrecognized by humans. While we may take these wireless signals for granted, they are capable of penetrating through doors and walls (which is why your wireless router in the living room can power tablets or laptops elsewhere in your house or apartment). Any time you move a hand or arm or leg, you are ever-so-slightly changing the frequency of those wireless signals – a phenomenon that the University of Washington researchers refer to as a Doppler frequency shift.”
Read more here.