Interesting new technology for smartphones from Microsoft

Using motions as a way to control devices is becoming more and more popular nowadays, largely thanks to Microsoft and the Kinect accessory for Xbox 360. Now though, we’re going to talk about another interesting technology, with which the software company has came up with recently – one that, thanks to the magic of hardware localisation, allows for a lot of fun with multiplayer games, such as for instance using your smartphone instead of a sword (or lightsaber) in a sword fight-based game.

The feature was actually demoed using an application, called SwordFight. The way this technology works is rather simple – both devices constantly give out sound signals, which the other smartphone picks up and, based on the frequency with which it does that, determines how far they are from one another. According to the creators of this technology, it’s precise by up to 2 cm, which is quite impressive, especially considering the early state in which the technology currently is. Sadly, though, it won’t be implemented into the mass devices in the recent future. B. A.