Gadgetory

it's time to control your computer like a Jedi I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update in just a few months you'll have the opportunity to control your computer just by waving your hand I'm talking about a motion sensor called the leap which sits below your computer monitor and senses your hand and finger movements so you can interact with a computer without using a mouse a touchscreen or stylus the leap will work with programs in a special leap app store the leap will be sold online and at best buy stores in May for eighty dollars and pre-orders are being taken now and there are other ways to control a computer with the wave of a hand at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona stmicroelectronics is showing off technology that can censor your movements near a touchscreen there's nothing special about the touch screen itself rather it's all in the chip that manages the screen it monitors the electric field that the screen gives off and when an object gets within two inches of the field it registers it as a touch this tech is not available right now but the chip maker is trying to sell this technology to manufacturers here's another new feature coming in May samsung smartphones will have an app called wallet and it's pretty much the same thing as Apple's passbook app while it will let users store barcodes for event tickets boarding passes membership cards and coupons all in one place and like passbook the wallet will send push notifications to alert you when you're near a place that can use one of your coupons or a ticket Samsung wallet will not be supporting NFC technology so there won't be any integration with tap to pay at least for now if your Facebook friends post good news such as getting a new job you'll start to see a button near the post that nudges you to give them a gift facebook says this is a test of a new gift-giving feature and it looks for particular keywords in your friends posts Facebook recently acquired the gift-giving app karma which did the same thing it monitored your friend's Facebook feeds for good and bad news and if Facebook follows all of Karma's features you might even see the option to give a gift to cheer someone up on a bad day calling all creative types Sony needs some help naming its pink balls and it's holding a contest for people to come up with names for this Bluetooth speaker there is also a black and a white version of the ball which costs 70 dollars and comes out March 5th the finalist with the best names get free balls that's your tech news update for more details on sony's contest and the other stories mentioned in this video head to the blog sina com / update from our studios in New York I'm Bridget Carey