

The Next Generation of Gesture Control - peterkchen
https://getmyo.com/#hn

======
mbesto
Couple of things:

1) Does this actually exist? The video looks SWEET, but feels like it's way to
computer generated and too flawless (in the video) to be true.

2) I believe gesture control will never full take over our computing needs.
Reason being, the feedback response from our skin's nerve endings are quicker
than the feedback from our eyes. In other words - 'gorilla arm' -
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchscreen#.22Gorilla_arm.22> Furthermore,
we'll continue to assume that touch-based and gesture-based systems will
replace all machines and computers, when I believe this is simply not true.
Our muscles were not built to work efficiently by "waving into the air". For
some applications this is true, but not all.

~~~
grinich
Yeah, it exists.

And for your second question: "gorilla arm" depends on where you have your
hands-- if you keep them below your heart, you can gesture almost indefinitely
without fatigue.

This is obvious for people who use a lot of hand gestures when talking, or
those who speak with sign language.

~~~
knowaveragejoe
I think the better question is: is it really as seamless/flawless as the video
portrays?

Some of the clips imply integration with systems that largely don't exist in
the way they're showing them(ski HUDs are real, but not like that). Another
notable omission is in the video game sequence - we never see them turn the
camera in any direction. I don't think that would be possible with this system
alone.

~~~
Smirnoff
You can always use a second one on your left arm to turn the camera around.
That's how joystick solved that problem :)

------
gavanwoolery
Similar products have existed for a long time, but mostly "in the lab."
Nonetheless, it is cool, although I suspect there would be a lot of accidental
gesturing -- there are many ways to prevent accidental gestures, but all at
the expense of usability.

~~~
ender7
I wish I could upvote you more than once. People will look at this video and
think "oh, they've solved the big problem!" when in fact they've solved _half_
of the big problem. Distinguishing between intentional and unintentional
gesture has been the academic elephant in the room for many years now, and no
one has come up with a good solution yet.

~~~
tobyjsullivan
Their FAQ states they've resolved this issue by leveraging unnatural gestures.
There's no way to tell if their solution is any good but at least this should
give the public an opportunity to decide which applications the tech is ready
for and which it isn't. Things that tend to be difficult to define "in the
lab."

------
jamesbritt
See also <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5279079>

I see that appending a useless hashtag still dupes the dupe detector.

------
jotux
I would love to see a schematic for the device or a teardown. I designed an
electrooculogram in college and I'm guessing this is a similar
electromyograph-type device. Measuring any signal on the body is challenging
and accounting for humidity/noise/etc is difficult.

------
stcredzero
Someone should make augmented reality games using fake martial-arts gestures.
For older folks, there's the climactic battle scenes of "Big Trouble, Little
China." For younger folks, there are the 'jutsu' from the Naruto anime/manga.

Stuff like this could revolutionize LARP.

------
abromowitz
This is similar to the air guitar concept from Microsoft Research researcher
Scott Saponas
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=p...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pktVSTwC8qo#!))

------
itsybaev
Ever wanted to give your computer the middle finger? With MYO armband, now you
can

~~~
stcredzero
Ctrl-Alt-Del?

~~~
itsybaev
yeah) show the finger to reboot lol

------
reustle
Here is a comment from reddit on this same device:

"Researcher in EMG systems for control here. I actually hadn't come across
this device before, though.

It may look like futuristic wizardry, but everyone and their mother has been
working on EMG signal classification algorithms for prosthesis and the like.

The video is definitely a farfetched depiction of what it's like to actually
use the device, but its cool to see stuff like this being put out there for
people to throw their money at. I wouldn't be surprised if my PI ends up
buying a couple for the lab, actually."

[http://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/comments/198bnv/shut_up_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/comments/198bnv/shut_up_and_take_my_money/c8ls5n7)

------
prawn
Preordered. Says I'm number 2,463 in the queue FWIW.

Been thinking for a while now that subtle enhancements like plain rings or
bracelets would come to be popular for interacting with home automation,
computers and so on. The sort of things that might not be as polarising or
awkward as something like Google Glass and that you could wear at almost all
times. This concept looks really smart and the potential is huge.

I assume you could wear two and significantly up your gesture potential in the
way that chorded keyboards work (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chorded_keyboard)?
Could even replace keyboards entirely if the learning curve wasn't too high?

Any YC people or Thalmic employees able to talk about what the prototypes are
like now?

------
wookietrader
With respect to Myo vs Leap.

Tracking is much precise than EMG based posture estimation. Unless these guys
made a leap of at least one order of magnitude compared to current state of
the art, expect the LEAP to be buch better in terms of gesture recognition.

Furthermore, this thing only allows the recognition of 20 gestures. That is
about log 20 bit every few seconds. On the other hand, the LEAP will give you
at least 10 finger positions plus rotations (thats more than 2^10 bits) every
few milliseconds.

I think if people will get used to LEAP based HCI, they will not look at Myo,
no matter if you can go to the kitchen with it.

------
zopf
Wonder if Microsoft will snap them up... or sue them.

[http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/02/microsoft-patent-
wearable...](http://www.engadget.com/2012/05/02/microsoft-patent-wearable-emg-
device/)

------
steeve
I gotta say, the way it works opens a much more complete set of gestures
options, and the fact that you don't have to stand in front/on top of
something for it to work is pretty great. This is pretty cool.

~~~
DavidBradbury
I personally like the fact that you don't need to have your arms lifted out in
front of you for many different types of actions. (And if you want to should
it feel more natural, you have that option)

------
icoder
This would go very well with Google Glass

~~~
barcoder
Agree with this, the MYO will find it's best use in combination with other
types of interactive hardware.

------
lukifer
I cannot wait for this. I hope it's trivial/possible to pair it with multiple
devices. Either way, a year from now, I fully expect to be wearing two of
these at all times. :)

------
beatpanda
I feel like we just keep swinging back and forth between handheld input
devices and cameras for gesture control. I thought cameras were cool because
they didn't require me to put some weird thing on to use my computer, but now
this is cool because it works at a higher resolution than gesture-control
cameras. Who's going to up the ante?

------
phreeza
One issue that I see with this, as with the Leap to a lesser degree, is how to
signal the start and end of a gesture to the device. With a touchscreen this
is pretty straightforward, but here it seems running a classifier on the
entire stream of all your movements might give a lot of false positives? Or am
I missing something?

~~~
prawn
The FAQ mentions having a unique gesture to enable/disable the device.

------
marvwhere
right now we have more then one leap motion in our office, and its pretty cool
to do some stuff with it, but today we saw your gadget and video and we were
very impressed.

i really like the slogan 'WAVEGOODBYE TO CAMERA BASED GESTURE CONTROL' -
because ur idea can be used everywhere, camera gestures only in the reach of a
computer/console.

so i really looking forward for the final version, and to hold it in my hand.
i hope your sdk is awesome from the scratch. it would suck, if all developers
have to wait for month, until a good version is available.

what i'm wondering, in the video the design of the hardware is different to
the selling screens. and i like the velcro version much more, because the
other one does not look like 'one size fits all' and might slight away on the
most arms.

so whatever...i'm looking forward too late 2013

~~~
xk_id
wait.. how come you guys have a leap motion? has it shipped yet? I have a pre-
order with them, but I haven't heard any updates.

~~~
oscilloscope
We applied for developer kits. I think they're still on track to ship
April/May.

------
marizmelo
If works as advertised will be great.

------
jesalg
This would make for a great device to pair with Google Glass. Minority report
here we come! :D

------
asteroidb612
This could be used to create the greatest Avatar the Last Airbender game ever.

------
prawn
Paging the Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock guy...

~~~
aymeric
:) That would be an awesome funny demo :)

------
kunil
Can it really feel finger muscles through your arm? I don't get how that works

~~~
mkl
The muscles that control your fingers are way back there up your forearm, and
transmit the force to the fingers by tendons that go through the wrist. Try
grabbing your forearm where their band sits and making and releasing a fist.

------
cpeterso
How do you pronounce "MYO"?

