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Doughnut adjust your set

¡¡¡¡HAVE you ever seen anything on television that made you shout or shake your fist in anger at the screen? Televisions are, of course, unable to respond to such reactions. But that could be about to change. Controlling your television and other homeª²entertainment devices using voice commands or gestures is starting to become possible thanks to a new generation of controllers.

¡¡¡¡Consider, for example, the controller that went on sale last month with Nintendo's Wii games console. In place of the usual (sometimes baffling) combination of buttons and joysticks, the Wii has a motionsensitive controller. The console can determine how the controller is moving in space and what it is pointing at, and uses that information to control what is happening on screen. Depending on the game, the controller becomes a warrior's sword or a golf club.

¡¡¡¡For some games, the controller connects up via a cable to a second, smaller handset called the "Nunchuk" after the weapon favoured by Bruce Lee in his martialª²arts movies (two batons linked by a chain). It is then possible to use one controller for movement, and the other to fire weapons or use items. The number of buttons on both controllers has been reduced to a minimum, as Nintendo hopes to draw in new customers who find existing games consoles too complicated. But whether the Wii will introduce a generation of grandmothers to the joys of karate games remains to be seen.

¡¡¡¡This living room overload is likely to get worse as telecoms operators launch a new generation of television over broadband services, using a technology called IPTV. This will make possible thousands of channels, downloadable programs and films, plus messaging, internet access and games. It will also involve the biggest and most complicated controllers ever seen. "The experience isn't as good as it could be," says Michael Cai of Parks Associates, a consultancy. So some companies believe a new approach is needed.

¡¡¡¡Other companies have looked at using speechª²based controllers in the living room. One firm, Promptu, developed a voice control system for American cable operators and tested it in conjunction with Motorola, which makes set top boxes. But it has now decided to reposition the technology as a voiceª²based navigation system for mobile phones. A simpler approach is taken by the In Voca voiceª²activated remote control. It is a universal remote control that can recognise 50 separate commands spoken by up to four separate users, from "lower volume" to "Cartoon Network".¡¡

¡¡¡¡A recent entry to the field is Apple Computer, a firm renowned for designing elegant, easyª²toª²use products. In 2007 it will launch a new device, called the iTV, that acts as a bridge between a television and a computer. It has a deliberately simple remote control that, like Apple's iconic iPod musicª²player, involves just one button and one wheel. Steve Jobs, the company's boss, boasts that it is "very Apple". Might his company be the one to solve the remoteª²control confusion?

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