The makers of the Oculus Rift headset may be trying their best to draw players into the virtual realities, but traditional or motion-assisted controllers are usually used to move with these virtual worlds. Thalmic Labs has a completely different vision for player interaction but – instead of trailing the positioning of a controller in the 3D arena, Thalmic’s Myo armbands build virtual representations of a player’s hands and forearms.
According to Thalmic’s FAQ page, Myo works by measuring the “electrical activity from your muscles to notice what gesture your hand is making.” The armbands have a Bluetooth 4.0 connection to connect on with Android, Windows, Mac or iOS devices. Thalmic lists the beginning shipments of Myo development kits for the “first half of 2014.” The consumer version of the product will be shipping shortly after that. Both the versions are priced at $149. Potential developers that don’t to wait to attend around for Thalmic’s wider distribution shipments can apply to join the Thalmic Alpha Developers, a group which will gain access to pre-production Myo hardware.