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Via SlashGear

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With the wearable device known as MYO, there’s no need for the computer to see you to understand your commands. Instead, this armband connects to your device – Mac and Windows for now, Android and iOS soon – with Bluetooth and reads gestures you make with your hand and arm through muscle fluctuations. This armband is already out in the wild – the full “second wave” for the public comes in early 2014.

While devices like Leap Motion require that you stay within a pre-determined space that its sensors can “see”, MYO stays within the Bluetooth range of reading. This means you’ll be kicking it at either 100 meters (330 ft) or 50 meters, depending on if you’re working with Bluetooth LE (Low Energy) or not – LE works with the shorter range.

The armband is a “one size fits all” sort of situation, and the final form hasn’t exactly taken shape as yet. The mock-ups you see here are about as close as the team has gotten to a real final form, while demo videos still show a slightly less finessed iteration.

The video

The consumer edition of this device will have a pre-set selection of gestures easily recognized by the sensors in the device. As the developers at Thalmic Labs suggest, this is only done to make things simple right out of the box:

“We want you to have the best experience with your MYO! In order to do this, at the general consumer level we are going to be providing you with set gestures that are easily recognized. This is not due to a technical limitation but instead will allow you to have a more seamless user experience out of the box. You will then be able to decide what each gesture represents.”

Thalmic Labs is a North American based company that was only fully founded in 2012, made up of 21 creative minds and headed by Canadian entrepreneur Stephen Lake. MYO is currently up for pre-order for $149 and again, ships in “early 2014.”

Via Nexus

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The Kinect for Windows team has announced that Microsoft is releasing PC-specific Kinect hardware in 2012, along with a Kinect SDK that will enable developers to build all sorts of apps for Kinect. Will the emergence of motion-based interfaces eventually overtake touchscreens in terms of intuitiveness in computing user interfaces?

Microsoft earlier announced the beta release of the Kinect for Windows SDK, which enabled hackers and enthusiasts to build programs that can take advantage of the Kinect’s motion-sensing capabilities. Just recently, Kinect for Windows GM Craig Eisler announced that the company’s commercial program will launch 2012, which will involve not only software, but also new Kinect hardware specifically designed for personal computers. These will take advantage of computers’ different capabilities, as well as the drawbacks of using the Kinect sensor meant for Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console.

In particular, the benefits of the upcoming hardware will include the following:

• Shorter USB cable to ensure reliable communication between the Kinect sensor and the different computer hardware. A small dongle will be included as a USB hub, so that other USB peripherals can also work alongside Kinect.
• New “Near Mode” that changes the minimum distance from the usual 6 to 8 feet feet down to 40 to 50 cm, so that users sitting in front of their computer can still manipulate elements through movement, even at close range. Firmware optimizations  will also make the Kinect more sensitive and responsive. It is hoped that these changes can lead to various new applications like virtual keyboards, hand gestures and even the use of facial expressions to manipulate programs on a computer.

Microsoft is also launching a new Kinect Accelerator business incubator through Microsoft BizSpark, through which the company will actively provide assistance to 10 companies in using the Kinect as a development platform. Microsoft sees businesses and end-users taking advantage of Kinect in more than just gaming. This can include developing special apps for people with disabilities, special needs, or injuries, and can also open the floodgates to other gesture and motion-based UI engineering.

Will Kinect be the next big thing in user experience engineering after multi-touch touchscreens and accelerometers?

Via slashgear

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Microsoft has released the Kinect for Windows SDK beta, as expected, allowing PC developers to use the motion-tracking accessory. A free 100MB download, the SDK offers support for the depth sensor, color camera and quad-microphone array, along with all the clever skeletal-tracking systems that Xbox 360 game developers have had access to.

There’s also integration with Windows’ speech recognition API. That potentially means developers will be able to use the microphone array – which can pinpoint which user is talking thanks to beam formation – to transcribe speech to text, open and control applications, and more.

Microsoft has thrown in plenty of technical documentation, samples, all the drivers you’ll need and support for C++, C#, or Visual Basic. This current iteration of the SDK is only for non-commercial purposes; Microsoft says it will be releasing a commercial version later on. You’ll obviously need a Kinect sensor, too, which currently costs around $140.

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Kinect for Windows SDK beta