Is there a video game more popular, more seeped into the cultural consciousness, than Tetris? This humble block puzzler took the world by storm in the 1980s on the original Gameboy and it hasn’t looked back since. All told, the game has appeared on just about every console imaginable, from your iPhone to your Nintendo Wii and back again. However, controls for the game are usually button or touchscreen only affairs. We don’t often use slight muscle gestures and respiration to control the feisty ‘L’ block and his cohorts. Until now, that is.
A company called Thought Technology, that specializes in all sorts of futuristic body sensors, is showing off some of their tech in a most peculiar way, by using Tetris. The company set up a game of falling blocks that is controlled using a unique combination of muscle and respiration sensors placed on the arms, forehead and abdomen. The result? The physiological sensors that are connected either through the company’s patented FlexComp or ProComp data acquisition systems recreate one heck of a game of Tetris, all without pushing a single button or swiping a single screen. The future is sort of just like the past but easier!
This kind of tech has more uses than playing video games, of course. Imagine a world where a surgeon can more accurately perform surgeries by making extremely precise muscle gestures or a world in which our Internet surfing is done without us even lifting a finger. It’s a marvelous world indeed. This is just concept tech for now but, hey, the company exists and is working on it so how long can it be before this is a consumer reality? Check a video of Tetris in action below.
