Remember MYO? That cool bracelet tracking your movements and muscle traction.
DJMag number 1 DJ Armin van Buuren now uses it in his live sets! He and his team like to try something new and wanted to have a more interactive control over what is going on stage. Infrared solution would not work in a club environment with all these strobes and lighting equipment. Luckily, technical team came across MYO, which works via Bluetooth and tests were proven to be a success.
Now, Armin has used it on several gigs and was pleased so far. He can control many devices at the same time thanks to custom programming code, capturing his stage movements. Watch for yourself! Good example, when technology and music find each other. Great job, MYO!
I thought that Leap Motion device is the future. With all its gesture controls and “Minority Report style” options. But here is something much more interesting — MYO device for your armband.
There are no optical sensors this time. The elastic armband controls not only arm movement, but also muscular activity. So, it can detect changes in hand gesture right down to each individual finger. There is NO LAG as MYO reads electrical signals in your muscles and they appear before you even start the gesture. Muscle-scanning and multi-axis accelerometer technology is proprietary.
And what is even more appealing, you can use it outside too. Imagine the possibilities! Thalmic founder Stephen Lake is totally right, when saying “There is a trend towards more tightly integrating technology with who we are as people“. We see it everywhere.
Any device with Bluetooth will be supported — PC, smartphones and why not… Google Glass ?? Not everyone wants to talk to his device aloud, eye movement tracking can still be far away from perfect and pressing buttons on the glasses temple is wearisome and old-fashioned. Just curve finger or swipe a bit and image is posted to Facebook.
Video shows “Google Glass style” device on a skier, who controls it by MYO. Especially I liked business presentation example, take a look.
20 gestures are already recognized out of the box and there will be more for sure. It already has all the functionality to control computers, play games, show presentations etc. API will be documented for developers to create even more robust applications.
Price for such a magnificent device is only $149; sad news is that it is only a pre-order. Thalmic Labs says it is going to be available in late 2013, long time to wait.
