The Surprisingly Simple Secret Behind the T707’s Gesture Controls

We figured out how Maria Sharapova's new cell phone silences itself with only a wave of the hand. In theory, anyway.

After hearing that you could actually silence rings from Sony-Ericsson’s new T707 fashion phone with a simple wave of the hand over the phone, we were a little bit surprised to hear that the company was building such innovative new technology into a phone built primarily for looks. As it turns out, there’s not much to it.

According to a Sony-Ericsson rep, the hovering tech is a simple feat of optical recognition, using the already-built-in camera. When the phone rings, it automatically turns on the camera, which, if you’ve set it down on the table properly, is facing up. Code within the phone simply looks for a hand waving, and it triggers the ring to mute.

Of course, that’s all fine and well in theory, but can the phone actually pull it off? We wouldn’t know. After asking for demos from Sony-Ericsson at two different events, we were shut down both times: once because reps couldn’t figure out how to trigger a ring for us, and once because the models on hand were not even fully functional. And of course, if you don’t set your phone down with the camera facing up, you’re also out of luck.

Regardless of whether the tech works, we can testify that this is indeed one very fashionable looking phone, from very exotic-looking and glossy exterior design to the metal-trimmed buttons inside.

Who knew tennis stars could design cell phones?