By Doug Gross, CNN
April 4, 2011 4:37 p.m. EDT | Filed under: Web
The system is silly but the software is real when a USC tech group mimicks Google's "Gmail Motion" April Fool's prank.
(CNN) -- Maybe there aren't as many fools out there as Google thought.
As part of its yearly barrage of April Fools' Day pranks, Google last week "announced" the beta release of Gmail Motion.
The fictitious feature spoofed the advent of motion-sensor technology in gaming and other digital fields, supposedly letting users type and send e-mail with a series of often silly-looking full-body movements.
The response from the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies? Why stop with just a joke?
In a video posted to YouTube, members of the Institute, which specializes in interactive digital media, shows off a system that does pretty much what Google's gag describes.
The project uses the sensor from Microsoft's Kinect gaming system for the Xbox.
Of course the project is also done with tongue firmly in cheek. Take its name, the Software Library Optimizing Obligatory Waving (SLOOW).
"This application is pretty ridiculous," reads text at the end of the video, which had been viewed more than 230,000 times as of Monday afternoon. "However, the software powering it is real."
The name is based on the actual system the Institute's MxR (Mixed Reality) group used to create it -- the Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit, or FAAST.
In the video, researcher Evan Suma mimics motions from Google's spoof video. He opens e-mail with a motion similar to opening a book. He replies to a message by jerking a thumb over his shoulder and sends one by -- ridiculously -- going through the motions of licking a stamp and sticking it on a letter.
"I can't keep a straight face," Suma says, breaking out in laughter as he waves at the end of the video.
So, a way to make e-mail as difficult as a game of volleyball and as silly-looking as mime school has become reality.
Now, can somebody get to work on "Angry Nerds?"
Credit: CNN (www.cnn.com)
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