In the 2002 film Minority Report, Tom Cruise controlled a computer by waving his hands around wearing special black gloves. In those pre-Wii days, that vision of the future looked pretty smart. But researchers at Microsoft and the University of Washington are taking user-interface technology one step further. In a recently published paper, engineers have demonstrated that it is possible to control electrical devices, including computers, with gestures alone – without the need for handheld hardware or special gloves.

The trick is this: Due to the wiring in the walls and the placement of electrical devices throughout a home, the environment is filled with a weak electromagnetic field – noise, in essence, harmless and meaningless. A human being moving through the field creates a detectable (and localizable, to coin a very ugly word) disturbance. The human body essentially acts as an antenna. The researchers have demonstrated that it is possible to use this phenomenon to control electronic devices.

The experiments run to date are limited to turning electrical lights on and off by tapping blank spots on the wall. The researchers are careful not to promise much more functionality. But it seems obvious, given the resolution and sensitivity the researchers measured in their early experiments, that control of communications, entertainment, and computing devices is not far off.

I am not an excitable fellow when it comes to technological breakthroughs – I've seen too many fizzle or get translated into mundane devices. But this research intrigues me. I feel as if I've caught a glimpse of a future in which the entire world is intelligent, and we interact with it as simply and naturally as moving. It could happen.

Web recommendation: Today I send you to the well-designed Web site of Novak Đoković. The Serbian star is capturing the attention of tennis fans around the world. Since I moved here I have found myself having endless conversations about him. (Well, they would be conversations if my correspondents spoke English or I spoke Serbian.) I'm not really a tennis fan, but he's the local hero and I've got to say it: J.D. says check it out.

J.D. Hildebrand has written hundreds of articles for dozens of publications and online communities dedicated to software development. He recently relocated to a small town outside Belgrade – stop by if your travels take you through Serbia.