Gmail Motion April Fools' Day Joke Realized with Kinect

One of Google's 2011 April Fools' Day pranks was the so-called Gmail Motion feature, whereby you could control Gmail using full-body gestures. Many noted at the time that this could probably be done using Kinect, and viola: it's done.

Built by the In fact, it was done by the same crew that developed a way to control World of Warcraft using Kinect, the USC Institute for Creative Technologies.

The group called their earlier development FAAST, for Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit, so naturally they called this one SLOOW for Software Library Optimizing Obligatory Waving. Perhaps the best gesture is "licking a stamp" to Send an email. They said:

This morning, Google introduced Gmail Motion, allowing users to control Gmail using gestures and body movement. However, for whatever reason, their application doesn't appear to work. So, we demonstrate our solution - the Software Library Optimizing Obligatory Waving (SLOOW) - and show how it can be used with a Microsoft Kinect sensor to control Gmail using the gestures described by Google.

Check it out below. We await a further update that will allow uploading to Google Docs (another Google AFD prank) by raising your laptop over your head.