MYO - Wearable Gesture Control from Thalmic Labs
With a wave of your hand, MYO will transform how you interact with your digital world...
MYO lets you use the electrical activity in your muscles to wirelessly control your computer, phone, and other favorite digital technologies.
The prefix "myo-" which is New Latin, from an old Greek term meaning muscle; pretty much explains itself. The MYO band which is basically a myograph (any device used to measure the force produced by a muscle when under contraction), picks up on the electrical activity in your muscles to wirelessly control your computer, phone, and other favorite digital technologies.
Thalmic Labs, the Waterloo-based startup working on an all new form of user input for computing devices with the MYO armband, is co-founded by three graduates of the University of Waterloo's mechatronics engineering program, including Matthew Bailey, Aaron Grant and Stephan Lake. Recently Thalmic Labs raises $14.5 million to make the MYO armband the next big thing in gesture control.
MYO armband measures electrical activity to detect fine movement from a wearer's arm, making for sensitive, accurate gesture-based control of computing devices, including desktop computers, smartphones and tablets, as well as a range of other possible devices.
MYO has had little trouble attracting the attention and imagination of tech enthusiasts. MYO has already received a lot of strong support from the community, and videos depicting the armband in action have garnered plenty of views, but strong support and plenty of advance hype doesn't guarantee success, especially in an area as untested as new interaction paradigms.
