Whistle (or scream) to control your computer!

Hello Readers!

It has been a long time since I wrote my last blog post. Well, I had been busy with a lot of things – like college, harmonica playing, meeting people, (and not to mention a whole host of fun, yet unproductive things I had been doing). Oh, and I was also busy reading, discussing and thinking over the last Harry Potter book by J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is stunningly beautiful. I loved it. :)

Well, anyway … I’m always in search for alternate ways to communicate with computers, and ever since I built a sound sensor for my Viper robot, I was thinking of ways to communicate with my computers using sound as a medium. I figured out how to use DirectSound to read the levels of my computer’s available sound capture devices thanks to a wonderful example by Jacob Klint over at CodeProject. I’ve written code to count the number of times the sound level of my microphone exceeds a certain threshold for controlling a few things on my computer. Say, for example, if I whistle two times (loudly), the software would check my email. If I whistle three times, it would turn off my computer, and so on.


The drawback is that it won’t be long before everyone in your house will be irritated by your whistling! That’s why I still prefer laser gesture recognition for controlling things. :) However, if you’re interested in seeing the code, just let me know.

Now, I’m thinking about capturing sound from two sources and perhaps even perform sound localization! That would be very cool. :) Keep visiting...