They get a lot of unwarranted flack, but the house that Bill Gates built, Microsoft, is always up to something cool. In recent years the company has come up with the Kinect, the Surface tablet and too many concept projects to name. They have a crack team of in-house designers who are always dreaming up the “next big thing.” Sometimes these ideas work, sometimes they don’t. That’s the nature of research and development. You throw a thousand ideas at the wall and if one sticks then it makes the whole thing worth it. It’s like the world’s most inefficient way to eat spaghetti.
On today’s docket? Microsoft was just granted a neat-sounding patent for a wearable EMG device that could have all kinds of unique applications. The “Wearable Electromyography-Based Controller” uses sensors to interpret the electrical signals generated by a user’s muscles, and then communicates with the wearer’s computer via a wireless connection. Microsoft initially envisioned the tech attached to an armband, but has since gone on record in suggesting it could implemented inside of glasses, shirts and even nodes directly attached to the user’s body.
What will it do? It’s basically a fully-realized version of gesture technology. Think Kinect on a grand and wearable scale. It could also have real-world applications such as monitoring exercise form to make sure you are doing it the right way. It can basically monitor any movement your body makes and do, well, anything with that information. The sky is the limit, but we here at Crunchwear like to imagine it being used to play Guitar Hero without a controller. Air Guitar Hero to the rescue.
