TO STAY HEALTHIER, SOME office workers have switched to standing desks. These desks let people stand to work at their computers, instead of sitting down all day. Now researchers in Canada are testing a system that could make working on a computer even more active. The setup lets people control computers by kicking, tapping, and stomping their feet.
A person uses the system by standing at a desk while wearing special shoes. Under the desk, a Kinect camera captures the person’s movements, while sensors inside the shoes detect how the person is stepping. Heel taps, toe taps, foot stomps, jumps, and kicks give the computer different commands, like scrolling down a page or opening a new browser tab. And to open a time-wasting page like Facebook, users might have to…
