Use your feet to control your computer

Computers & Mobile
Use your feet to control your computer

Capt.6A858C5A5Ac84954Bfe5A964D096A3Fe.Microsoft Techfest Watw102
Dance Dance those emails away – “This is just one off-the-shelf piece of hardware we can use,” A.J. Brush, the lead researcher on the project, said after demonstrating the technology. “Now we’re looking at broadening, thinking about accelerometers or other things you could strap onto your feet so you really could be just sitting at your desk and kicking your e-mail away under the desk.” – [via] Link.

You can likely make this yourself now, check out the free, open source StepMania – a free dance and rhythm game for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It features 3D graphics, keyboard and “dance pad” support, and an editor for creating your own steps. See their hardware section on dance pads and which ones work, then macro up your dance pad to become a keyboard. Other ideas: DDR RSS reader, iTunes visualizer with StepMania, collaborative & competitive avatar based Dance Dance Revolution / Stepmania in Second Life.

4 thoughts on “Use your feet to control your computer

  1. monopole says:

    Check out pyDDR for a python binding of the DDR interface.

  2. mister.joshua says:

    I’ve gotten pretty good at Bushido Blade with the Kraft dance pad. When fighters clash swords and have to tap buttons to break it off, that’s good exercise.

    There’s been a lot of talk about the Nintendo Revolution “nunchaku” configuration, but what about one where movement is controlled by a dance pad? Imagine jumping left and right, running forward and backward, with your real feet, while swinging a sword with the Revolution controller. That seems really fun to me.

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