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Sam Speak

A Floyd Waterson Production

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"The known is finite,
the unknown infinite;
intellectually we stand on an islet
in the midst of an
illimitable ocean of inexplicability. 
Our business in every

generation is to
relcaim a little more land." 

--T.H. Huxley

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Thursday, October 29, 2009

 

Who Controls Whom?

Technology Review tells us the mouse and keyboard are passe:

It's a good time to be communicating with computers. No longer are we constrained by the mouse and keyboard--touch screens and gesture-based controllers are becoming increasingly common. A startup called Emotiv Systems even sells a cap that reads brain activity, allowing the wearer to control a computer game with her thoughts.

Now, researchers at Microsoft, the University of Washington in Seattle, and the University of Toronto in Canada have come up with another way to interact with computers: a muscle-controlled interface that allows for hands-free, gestural interaction.

A band of electrodes attach to a person's forearm and read electrical activity from different arm muscles. These signals are then correlated to specific hand gestures, such as touching a finger and thumb together, or gripping an object tighter than normal. The researchers envision using the technology to change songs in an MP3 player while running or to play a game like Guitar Hero without the usual plastic controller.

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