While we've definitely seen a lot of smartbands come out this CES 2014, the MYO Armband from Thalmic Labs is one of the cooler devices we'd like to try on. Rather than give you smartphone notifications, the MYO Armband lets you control games, software and hardware using just the gestures from your arms and it does so with no wires attached. Thalmic Labs co-founder Aaron Grant even used the Armbands to play Call of Duty: Ghosts showing off how sensitive and precise the armband can be. The MYO Armband works by detecting the muscle movement of the arms so as long as it touches the inside of the arm it can detect gestures that you make with your fingers and motions with your arms.
The demo went on to show control of a slideshow presentation as well. The company envisions the MYO armbands for use in industrial robotics, outer space applications and other gesture based authentication but we can easily see them being used by surgeons for remote surgery and construction workers to control huge heavy machinery. The MYO Armband is available for preorder at just $149 from the Thalmic Labs website with a retail version expected in Q1 to Q2 of 2014.
For some reason, it reminded me of an old giant robot anime I used to watch as a kid where the pilot controlled the giant robot using armbands much like the MYO Armband. Will we finally be able to control giant robots freely? Well, with the MYO Armbands you certainly could but why would you want to build a giant robot? For now check out the awesomely cool videos below:
[Source]
COMMENTS