Control Anything With Gestures: Myo Bluetooth Protocol Released 15
First time accepted submitter Legendary Teeth writes The makers of the Myo Gesture Control Armband (Thalmic Labs) have just released the specs for the Bluetooth protocol it uses. While there are already official SDKs for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android, this means that now anyone can roll their own support for other platforms like Linux or Arduino without needing to use one of the official platforms as a bridge. Anything you can write code for that that can act as a Bluetooth GATT client would now be possible, really. If you aren't familiar with the Myo armband, it's a Bluetooth Low Energy device with 8 EMG pods and an IMU that you wear on your arm. It can read your muscle activity to detect gestures you make with you hands, which you can then use to do things like fly drones, play games, or control music.
Finally (Score:2)
I can flip my computer instead of pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL!
Re: (Score:2)
Aww, so close, but you accidentally a word.
I think you have to be lucky. (Score:3)
I think you have to be very lucky with something like this. There is a common trend: everyone wants to be the app store, where you get to be the gatekeeper, either by charging for apps, or providing the unique hardware.
I think the idea is you do basically the minimum work, create an "ecosystem" and then get everyone to do all the hard work for you of developing meaningful applications, without you having to pay a cent (or not many).
It's great when it works: Apple are raking it in as a result. However, the iPhone was already a compelling platform (remember how much smartphones sucked back then?) before the app store. So once the app store was released, there was already a large install base so app writers had an immediate audience.
With something like this is has few uses out of the box. The only initial users are serious enthusiasts and any apps written are going to target fellow enthusiasts. I think it's going to be very hard building up critical mass so you can get into the great position from such a proposition, or you'd have to be very lucky at any rate.
History is already written with app-store wannabes.
fly drones (Score:1)
UX Nightmare! (Score:2)
"For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive—you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to
It's even more amazing than the makers claim! (Score:2)
I wearing one while driving in NYC the other day, and every time I made one particular gesture at other drivers, they made the exact same gesture back at me. Uncanny.
Ready for PC, Android, not so much (Score:1)
I've been working with this for a few months now and the PC version is 97.5% there. You can program it to add novel input to a number of programs. You'd be surprised what you can add to a program with a few gestures and gyro data. But in the process of porting one of these programs to Android we realized that the input was not nearly as accurate. The Android version needs a calibration tool like the PC does. When that happens there are numerous killer applications for this with mobile devices. And, as a su
Preempt it! (Score:2)
Let's go ahead and make using this while driving illegal before it becomes popular.