Thalmic Labs unveiled its Myo Armband last June as a means to control gadgets using gestures by detecting electrical forearm signals. Now the company plans to work with Oculus Rift for a new level of physical gaming.
Spark Capital owns both the device makers and made the investment with the cross-over potential in mind. Being able to look around a room with the Oculus Rift is great but while still using a controller it's not as immersive as it could be. The Myo will encourage physical gaming to pull gamers into another world.
READ: Valve launches SteamVR beta for Oculus Rift
Myo founder and CEO Stephen Lake confirms the team-up: "There are projects using both Myo and Rift. For example, there are developers in our Alpha program integrating both with Unity for various games. I think it’s a badass use case."
You may soon be able to point your fleshy hand gun in the real world and be weilding a laser canon in another. A trigger squeeze to fire, over-arm reach to change gun, or shake to reload could all become real gesture controls. How you'd move around hasn't been made clear, but the potential is huge. Wearing your best Master Chief cosplay outfit while doing this is optional.
2014 will be an exciting year for immersive gaming with Oculus Rift and the Myo Armband on their way to pull us out of reality like never before.