This Headgear Puts Your Moves On-Screen [VIDEO]

LAS VEGAS — Motion control was a pretty hot topic at this year’s CES, and though the buzz centered around Microsoft, Samsung and Tobii, they aren’t the only companies with ideas for how you can use your body to guide on-screen activity. Enter AikenLabs. Its new technology can motion-enable virtually any interface.

Its Immersive Motion Sensory System makes you look, admittedly, a little silly when you wear it. It consists of a headband with a small plastic box on the front and two smaller, similar bands and boxes — one for each hand (you can actually wear up to eight of these sensors). Inside each box is a collection of motion sensors, including a magnetometer, accelerometer and gyroscope. They combine to read the exact position and movement in space of your head and hands. All deliver their readings to a special, wireless server box, which is then connected to your PC.

Using AikenLabs’ software, programmers and users can connect any number of pre-defined real-world actions to on-screen activity. I used it to play a rudimentary PC game. When I looked around in the real world, my view on screen changed. I could look left, right, up and down in the CES show hall and my on-screen view looked all around in the virtual world, as well. With the two sensors on my hands, I targeted virtual trees with one hand and pushed them over with the other. It made me feel just a little bit like a Jedi Master.

AikenLabs will be selling the Pro Server, two wireless sensors and the programming software for $499 sometime this spring. They’re also offering a desktop version for consumers and $149 Bluetooth-enabled motion sensors for use with smartphone games.

Do you want to control your computer and with your body or are you satisfied with a good-old-fashioned mouse and keyboard? Tell us in the comments.