T-shirt to make Air Guitar Obsolete.

extremejon09 · **Joined:** Mon May 10, 2004 10:28 pm **Posts:** 4675

Quote:

It's called the WIS - the Wearable Instrument Shirt - and it is tipped to make the air guitar as obsolete as the horse and cart.

Scientists at the CSIRO's Textile and Fibre Technology division in Geelong have woven electronic sensors into a T-shirt so that it can be played liked a real guitar.

Movements by the wearer's arms are mapped and beamed by radio to a computer which interprets them and turns them into musical notes.

The wearer only has to act out playing the instrument to make sounds.

"The left arm chooses a note and the right arm plays it," said Richard Helmer, a CSIRO chemical engineer who led the project. The arrangement can be reversed for left-handed musicians.

"You can play with yours hands above your head," said Dr Helmer. "You can turn around and jump. Whatever you like."

Exactly when the WIS could be on the market is not certain, but the CSIRO has already taken out patents and Dr Helmer has started work on a business plan for its commercialisation.

While Dr Helmer believed the market for the WIS could be enormous, the real objective was to let the public glimpse the future of intelligent clothing being devoped by the CSIRO.

People wearing shirts with sensors could operate computers and play computer games without ever having to touck a mouse or a touch pad.

Intelligent clothes could create 3D replicas of physiotherapy patients to help teach them to walk and bend again after injuries.

Patients could even be examined by specialists in another city or country. And electronic clothes could even be used to teach people to play golf or tennis.

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/11/ ... ?from=top5

Video:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-v31MGDGTAc& ... er&search=

Color Printer · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 3:28 am

Dang. I like the air guitar.

So do other people. Like Kid Radd. And that guy on Ebay.

That shirt sounds awesome though. I wonder about the price tag, though...

Dewy · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:54 am

Couple things...

1. How is it gonna determine what note you're trying to play, and how will you know if you're not familiar with, lets say, a fretboard?

2. If they're gonna make that for video games, just imagine an FPS. You'd go through all the actual motions to reload and aim, which would be AWESOME!

Choc-o-Lardiac Arrest · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 5:56 am

Dewy wrote:

2. If they're gonna make that for video games, just imagine an FPS. You'd go through all the actual motions to reload and aim, which would be AWESOME!

But the question is, how will you walk in the game? Sure, if it was an FPS like House of the Dead, then it could work. But as for anything else, it wouldn't really work out so good...

Dewy · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:02 am

Choc-o-Lardiac Arrest wrote:

Dewy wrote:

2. If they're gonna make that for video games, just imagine an FPS. You'd go through all the actual motions to reload and aim, which would be AWESOME!

But the question is, how will you walk in the game? Sure, if it was an FPS like House of the Dead, then it could work. But as for anything else, it wouldn't really work out so good...

A small treadmill style thing? Like a home dance pad for DDR but with a treadmill instead....maybe not. Well, did you ever watch that sucky show back on the original G4...what was it called..uh...Arena. They often played Americas Army with VR things with actual 1:1 Light Rifles and they were standing... maybe they could figure out how they made the guys walk.

Choc-o-Lardiac Arrest · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:03 am

Dewy wrote:

Choc-o-Lardiac Arrest wrote:

Dewy wrote:

2. If they're gonna make that for video games, just imagine an FPS. You'd go through all the actual motions to reload and aim, which would be AWESOME!

But the question is, how will you walk in the game? Sure, if it was an FPS like House of the Dead, then it could work. But as for anything else, it wouldn't really work out so good...

A small treadmill style thing? Like a home dance pad for DDR but with a treadmill instead....maybe not. Well, did you ever watch that sucky show back on the original G4...what was it called..uh...Arena. They often played Americas Army with VR things with actual 1:1 Light Rifles and they were standing... maybe they could figure out how they made the guys walk.

Yeah, but could they put that all on a shirt?

Dewy · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:08 am

It looks like thats what they're shooting for.

If they actually manage that, it'll probably end up like this.

Choc-o-Lardiac Arrest · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 6:13 am

Dewy wrote:

It looks like thats what they're shooting for.

If they actually manage that, it'll probably end up like this.

More than likely.

ready for prime time · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 7:06 am

with a dog on the front.

Choc-o-Lardiac Arrest · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 3:19 pm

Okay, so the concept of a shirt that can play videogames is flawed due to movement capabilities. Of course, if there was some sort of tredmil pad that could move in all directions and follows the patterns of the legs movements,(I.E. Move when the legs do, stop when the legs do, etc.), then it could possibly work. But then again, holding your arms in the air like a machine gun is boring but really fun to watch, so gamers would get bored and tired with just their hands out waving in the air, so some sort of baton-like thing would have to be used to give the feeling of holding a sword, or a gun, or other things of that sort.

But alas, something like that is not possible in this era, and probably won't be until our children reach college. Probably.

Dewy · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 4:31 pm

If it even happens.

The Noid · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 8:41 pm

A horse isn't obsolete.

Anyways, I dunno about this.

extremejon09 · **Joined:** Mon May 10, 2004 10:28 pm **Posts:** 4675

Dewy wrote:

Couple things...

1. How is it gonna determine what note you're trying to play, and how will you know if you're not familiar with, lets say, a fretboard?

As explained in the video, it detects what angle and such your arm is at.

Choc-o-Lardiac Arrest · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 10:57 pm

extremejon09 wrote:

Dewy wrote:

Couple things...

1. How is it gonna determine what note you're trying to play, and how will you know if you're not familiar with, lets say, a fretboard?

As explained in the video, it detects what angle and such your arm is at.

So? you don't play a guitar with your arms, you play it with your hands and fingers. Theres no way that it could individually map and detect what each finger does, where it goes, and the like. If it did, all it would produce would be a bunch of sounds that have absolutely no beat, no rhythm, just a bunch of incomprehensible guitar sounds; kinda like GreenDay.

Chekt · **Posted:** Wed Feb 28, 2007 11:17 pm

…what the heck?

I just don't see how this can work at all. It also probably sounds like a cat getting stangled.

EDIT BY SR: yeah, it's not a bad word, but it's not allowed to be used that way here...[/quote]

Chichindrich · **Posted:** Thu Mar 01, 2007 12:52 am

Don't be so quick to condemn this to failure. This sort of thing has been researched/in development at my school. So far, they haven't gotten it sounding great, but you can still play different frequencies and stuff.

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