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Remember Tom Cruise in the futuristic film “Minority Report”? He was shown playing with virtual screens with his hand gestures. He was shown doing the exactly same thing which we do with our mouse and keyboard.

But now, this futuristic act is happening live. Israeli researchers have developed a new hand-gesture recognition system like the one used by Tom Cruise in the futuristic movie Minority Report. The new system, called Gestix, enables doctors to manipulate digital images during medical procedures by motioning instead of touching a screen, keyboard or mouse.

The touch-screens currently used in many operating rooms are required to be sealed to prevent accumulation of contaminants and they must also be thoroughly cleaned after each procedure – but many times, these necessary precautions are not taken.

The apparatus comprises a colour video camera above a flat, widescreen monitor placed next to the operating table. The video signal from the camera is fed to a PC, where software trained to detect the colour of the surgeon’s gloves tracks the movements of his hand.

“Gestix simply requires the surgeon to learn eight gestures, including swishing the hand right or left to go back or forth through a preloaded image sequence, or clockwise and counter-clockwise to zoom in and out,” said Helman Stern, a principal investigator on the project.

The scientists tested the sterile browsing system at the Washington Hospital Centre in the US, and believe it is the first time a hand gesture recognition system was successfully implemented in an actual “in vivo” neurosurgical brain biopsy.