MYO Armband Provides Control For Your Phone, UAV

The MYO armband uses the electrical activity in your muscles to wirelessly control your computer and your phone, not to mention your quadrotor UAV.


(MYO demonstration video)

The MYO senses gestures and movements in two ways: 1) muscle activity, and 2) motion sensing. When sensing the muscle movements of the user, the device can detect changes in hand gesture right down to each individual finger. When tracking the positioning in space of the arm and hand, the device can detect subtle movements in all directions.

Movements can be detected very quickly - Sometimes, it even looks like the gesture is recognized before your hand starts moving! This is because the muscles are activated slightly before your fingers actually start moving, and we are able to detect the gesture before that happens!

The MYO works out of the box with things you already have - like your Mac or Windows PC. You can control presentations, video, content, games, browse the web, create music, edit videos, and so much more. And developers are dreaming of new, exciting ways to use MYO every day. The MYO is a whole new way to interact with technology.

[MYO uses] a unique gesture that is unlikely to occur normally to enable and disable control using the MYO. The MYO alerts the user via haptic feedback to let them know when it is enabled and detecting movement.

Windows and Mac OS will be fully supported, and APIs will additionally be available for iOS and Android developers to integrate the myo on those platforms.

Ian Banks mentions something similar in his 2004 novel The Algebraist in this passage about a muscle sensor interface:

The ship accelerated smoothly but moderately hard, creating a distant humming roar. Fassin had a little pad under his right forearm which sensed muscle movements there and adjusted the screen across from him - above from him, now, it felt, as the couch straightened out and the gee-suit supported him...

Earlier, in Harry Harrison's 1960 novel Deathworld, here's another reference:

Here, take your left hand and grasp an imaginary gunbutt. Tense your trigger finger. Do you notice the pattern of the tendons in the wrist? Sensitive actuators touch the tendons in your right wrist. They ignore all patterns except the one that says hand ready to receive gun...
(Read more about Harry Harrison's power holster)

Via Get MYO.

Scroll down for more stories in the same category. (Story submitted 2/27/2013)

Follow this kind of news @Technovelgy.

| Email | RSS | Blog It | Stumble | del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit |

Would you like to contribute a story tip? It's easy:
Get the URL of the story, and the related sf author, and add it here.

Comment/Join discussion (Back On) ( 1 )

Related News Stories - (" Engineering ")

Swiss HCPVT Giant Photovoltaic 'Flower'
'...leaning against one of the slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector.'- David Brin, 1990.

Peel And Stick Thin Film Solar Cells
'It turns sunlight into electricity, just like any solar power converter, but you spray it on.'- Larry Niven, 1995.

Microbattery Extreme High Performance
'To this Foyle affixed a power pack the size of a pea and switched it on.'- Alfred Bester, 1956.

Speeding Ticket Robots To Cite Autonomous Cars?
'There is no danger of a vehicle's speed exceeding that allowed in the section in which it happens to be...'- John Jacob Astor IV, 1894.

 

Google
  Web TechNovelgy.com   

Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Invention Timeline, or see what's New.

 

 

 

 

 

Current News

German Firm Seeks To Recruit Autistics
Not a deficit, but a strength.

NASA Supports Pizza Printer
Is it extra with printed pepperoni?

Could Ground-Based Lasers De-Orbit Space Junk?
'Then their lasers vaporized the smaller satellites...'

'Hello, Computer!' Google Now Highlighted at IO13
'Hello, computer!'

MIT Robot Cheetah Video Shows Gait Transition
'The legs are long, curled way up to deliver power, like a cheetah's.'

TrackingPoint Smart Rifle
Not your typical 'smart bullet' approach.

Sky City's 220 Stories Are Go
'It rested among green parklands and... stood in total isolation, a glittering block of whites and flashing windows dotted with colors.'

CARMAT Bioprosthetic Total Human Heart Replacement
'George Walt's corporate existence proved the workability of wholly mechanical organs...'

Personal Sniffer Robots
'...The ticking combinations of the olfactory system of the hound.'

Physical Exam? We've Got Apps
See the future of handheld, personal medical devices.

The Interplanetary Internet, Vint Cerf Speaking
'This was the center of Interplanetary Communications.'

Drosophila Robotica, The Mechanical Fly
'... the Scarab [flying robot] buzzed into the great workroom as any intruding insect might...'

Robo-Raven Flapping Wing Robot Bird
'When he had first built them, they had been crude indeed, flying mechanisms with little more than a reflex-response unit.'

Japan's Nursing Home Robot Plan
Let's make the Roujin Z-0001 Robotic Bed!

Samsung Smart TVs With Gesture Control
'He waved his hand and the circuit switched abruptly.'

Swiss HCPVT Giant Photovoltaic 'Flower'
'...leaning against one of the slender stalks of a sunshade-photocell collector.'

More SF in the News Stories

More Beyond Technovelgy science news stories

Home | Glossary | Invention Timeline | Category | New | Contact Us | FAQ | Advertise |
Technovelgy.com - where science meets fiction™

Copyright© Technovelgy LLC; all rights reserved.