NEC's ArmKeypad lets you play charades to control your media player (video)
Okay, two words, sounds like... wait, it's one word? Okay, two words in one. First word, three letters, sounds like "arm." Oh, it is "arm." Okay, second word. You're typing. Typing on keys. It's keyboard. It's not a keyboard? No, it is a keyboard. The word isn't "keyboard?" Really? Maybe "keypad?" It's "keypad!" What the heck is an ArmKeypad? Turns out it's NEC's attempt at letting us control our portable devices using charades-like gestures, which we first heard about last week. You can tap your arms in different places to control volume or skip tracks, even clap your hands if you're happy and your want your PMP to know it. The system relies on a wrist-borne accelerometer that detects the impacts and, while the video below looks a bit goofy, that's far better than fumbling with your smartphone while sucking wind on your thrice-weekly runs. And, it's certainly far simpler than the projected Skinput. NEC expects to have this tech built into a watch-like device sometime within the next two years. That watch had better have a calculator.
