"Gesture Search ... lets you find ... items, by simply drawing alphabet gestures on the touchscreen"

As the rest of the posters have pointed out, there seems to be a contradiction.

" you can open Gesture Search and draw the letter "A", and Gesture Search will return a list of items that have words starting with "A".

Of course if your handwriting is pants and your "A" looks more like an "H" it will bring up those results instead."

Sounds more like you're drawing it on the screen...

"allows you to draw a letter of the alphabet in the air" <<<<<-----

certianly not the first ever, probably not the first on Android, but Dolphin browser has been making good use of gestures for a while. So this is hardly newsworthy - unless, as Jon says, a front facing camera can "see" gestures in the air.

I think Nick was just trying to make a joke and its actually hinted at something better than reality to be honest

Unless I'm reading it wrong... welcome to 1997. Hasn't the Palm Pilot been recognizing written text on its touchscreen for years?

Or does Nick mean you can draw characters in space in front of the device and it sees it with the camera?

The article isn't clear and seems to conflict.