Dear Friends,
Be Well.David
Your Next Computer Will Live on
Your Arm
BY SARAH MITROFF
02.25.13
3:20 PM
Thalmic Labs co-founder Stephen Lake building the Myo.
Photo: Thalmic Labs
Forget about robots rising up against humans for world
domination. In the future we’re all going to be robot-human hybrids with the
help of wearable computers. We’ve already seen Google Glass, the search giant’s
augmented-reality glasses, and now the latest Y Combinator startup to come out
of stealth, Thalmic Labs, is giving us a wrist cuff that will one day control
computers, smartphones, gaming consoles, and remote-control devices with simple
hand gestures.
Unlike voice-detecting Google Glass, and the camera-powered
Kinect and Leap Motion controller, Thalmic Labs is going to the source of your
hand and finger gestures – your forearm muscles. “In looking at wearable
computers, we realized there are problems with input for augmented-reality
devices,” says Thalmic Labs co-founder Stephen Lake. “You can use voice, but no
one wants to be sitting on the subway talking to themselves, and cameras can’t
follow wherever you go.”
I’d argue that thanks to Bluetooth headsets and Siri,
we’ve already been talking to ourselves for the last decade, so talking to my
glasses isn’t a huge stretch. But, I won’t deny that it looks cool to casually
flick my hand to change the song on my MacBook, which is what Thalmic Labs is
promising with its $149 forearm gadget called the Myo (a nod to the Greek
prefix for muscle, but rhymes with Leo), which has an adjustable band that can
accommodate almost anyone.
Using a technique called electromyography, which
measures the electrical impulses produced by your muscles when you move them, the
Myo’s sensors can detect when you make a gesture and translate that to a
digital command for your computer, mobile device, or remote controlled vehicle.
“When you go to move you hand, you’re using muscles in your forearm which, when
they contract and activate, produce just a few microvolts of electrical
activity,” says Lake. “Our sensors on the surface of the skin amplify that
activity by thousands of times and plug it into a processor in the band, which
is running machine learning algorithms.” Similar technology is found in
high-tech arm and hand prosthetics, as well as the Necomimi Brainwave
Controlled Cat Ears.
Since most humans activate the same muscles when they
point their finger or wave their hand, Thalmic Labs was able to compile a set
of specific electrical patterns based on our movements and translate them into
thousands of digital commands. As you wear the Myo over time, Lake says, it
begins to learn your unique electrical impulses and accuracy improves. The
device also has haptic feedback – a small vibration – to tell you when you’ve
completed a recognized gesture, such as a hand swipe or finger pinch. That
helps shorten the learning curve, says Lake.
In a video showing off the Myo, the device controls
video and audio playback, switches between screens on a computer, and directs
remote-controlled devices, but Lake says there are many more ways to use it.
“If you think about your daily life, you use your hands to interact with and
manipulate just about everything you do, from pressing numbers on your phone to
picking up your coffee,” says Lake. “Now think if we can take all those motions
and actions and plug them into just about any computer or digital system, the
possibilities are endless.” When the Myo ships in late 2013, Thalmic Labs will
offer an open API so that developers can connect it to other systems or build
their own programs.
The finished Myo wristband. Photo: Thalmic Labs
Though the idea of a motion control wristband might
only appeal to the hardest-core of wearable computer enthusiasts right now,
Lake has high hopes that the trend will eventually reach the masses. ‘Right now
we’re just on the cusp of a major shift in computing, and whether it’s a Google
product or something else, at some point in the next couple years wearable computing
devices are going to change how everyone will communicate and interact with
technology,” he says. “Ultimately the line between us and our devices will
start becoming a lot more blurred.”
Thalmic Lab’s timing is spot-on. Google finally
pulling the curtain back on its Project Glass augmented reality glasses has
spurred (mostly positive) chatter about wearable computers, and how they’ll
change our relationship with technology. Though Glass and Myo have a few years
to go before more than just a slice of population will want to have them, it’s
easy to picture a future in which everyone is wearing a computer. And it’s not
a stretch to imagine the same people who would don a pair of glass-less glasses
that can record video and photos, send emails and text, and look up anything on
Google, would also slide their arm into a muscle-sensing band that can control
computers with a hand gesture. If you’re one of those people, pre-order for the
Myo starts today.
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