VIDEO: Microsoft's Muscle Controlled Interface
Air Guitar Hero!
We're all eager to hear more about Microsoft's motion sensing project Natal but while we're focusing on presentations from June of last year, Microsoft seems to be focusing on something else.
We're expecting to hear more on Natal this week at CES, however, Ballmer will likely be faced with questions about new systems based on muscle control. According to Boy Genius Report, the company has filed for a patent covering several methods of computing that utilize electromyography (EMG). EMG would translate the electrical activity produced by muscles into instructions to control your computer. EMG is already used in advanced prosthetic and in the millitary but Microsoft is trying to bring the technology home to users.
BGR reports that the patent Microsoft has asked for takes this technology and applies it to consumer level devices using electrodes attached to the arms, head, chest and legs. Microsoft even hints at a wearable electromyography controller that could be worn during play.
Check out the video below to see EMG gaming in action.
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wow, thats pretty cool...although how would on go about placing the sensors on themselves? Do they know where they go? Will you always have wires running up your arm? What about an accidental gesture?
I like the idea a lot, but i don't really see this catching on any time soon.
How uncomfortable.
I can think of a few pr0n applications...
This is simply awesome. Almost as good as the robot that can catch a cellphone.
I can see how wires would definitely interfere though. If wireless was an option, I would get that for sure.
It should be awesome for peoples who lost an arm or an hand... but for anyone else... it only means playing AIR Guitar Hero.
The application capability for this once the technology gets small enough to be put on a film-like interface is astonishing.
"If wireless was an option, I would get that for sure."
The last 10 seconds of the video show a wireless option coming in the next generation of the prototype.
Probably won't have the lag that natal is supposed to have either. Direct connect from your electrical system to the computer's (granted it's just the end muscle signals and not a direct connect to the mind)
here comes the future...
that would be just amazing
go microsoft!
Of course though you would need to shave!!! LOL
that's a lot of Research and Development to go into changing the song on your mp3 player while your jogging.
Sounds pretty awesome. I can imagine fighting games evolving with this tech.
I am not shaving my arms to use this. Epic fail!
this will be used in the most dirtiest of ways...
Microsoft = Cyberdyne Systems. Let the Paradoxes begin.
This is just the first step. Next they will have a device that will scan your nerve impulses from a distance. No wire attachments to muscles required.
I will call this a Gang sign device.
this is interesting and is very flexible of were they can go with this tech
This is obviously still in R&D but could have great potential 10 years from now.
I remember talking to people about what the internet could be in 1992 and people looked at me like I was retarded and living in a Star Trek world. Needless to say I never in my wildest dreams thought it would be what it is today. Imagine describing the way the net is today to people in 1990.
Oh great, more idiotic ways to play a guitar game when for the same price you can go to a pawnshop and buy a guitar...
Whatever happened to the OCZ NIA? You could do quad directional movement and a single action or two with a lot of practise. (such as click, right click)
Mix that with sensors around the body, the see how far we can go.
Or... just give us a NIA 2.0 already and screw this!
Is it me.. or does this just seem like.. old?
Why not use the brains alpha patterns ..like "Electroencephalography" sans the Pinhead mask
in fact, you are dead on jarhead. i've seen a discovery show where monkeys and humans have moved robots using only their brains and a helmet that is connected to a computer. now change this interface and design a bunch where the helmet is wireless and you control an FPS character in a video game or a real mechwarrior or a F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in a military setting or a computer game. 50 yrs from now, i'll be laying in my retirement bed with a helmet on killing 15 yr old script kiddies with only my brain in some cool FPS. the future is what you can imagine it to be.
Awesome technology; the mapping of nervous system signals to computational tasks is becoming mature tech so I'm pretty sure the "10 year" timeline comment is a little pessimistic. And you won't need to shave your arm anymore than you need to shave your head to get Nia or the Emotiv Epoc to work.
And regarding Nia, other companies have matured the technology beyond where OCZ got with it (not to diss OCZ; I'm glad they released it): Check out the Emotiv Epoc. Emotiv's system doesn't require the same extensive training (though it does need some) and has more directional movement including some crazy crap like "rotate" and "disappear." I own one, so I can say it's not a magic bullet and will take time for the technology in general, and the Epoc in particular, to mature. But it does work, right out of the box.