Kotaku Australia » johnny lee

Wonder At The Guitar Hero Muscle Controller

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:40:11 +0000

Welcome to Bobby Kotick’s nightmare, a world in which Guitar Hero controllers could be rendered useless, a world in which video games can be played by monitoring muscle actions. A brave new air guitar future!

In reality, this technical demonstration of muscle-computer interfaces, as shown at the ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, looks far less precise, far more finger straining than playing with traditional plastic. But the work done here by Scott Saponas, a PhD student at the University of Washington, and his peers could provide some of the tactile feedback missing from other motion control options, like Microsoft’s Project Natal.

The non-gaming applications are just as fascinating, especially the theoretical car door opening baby carriage. Much better than the personal jet packs and silver jumpsuits I had planned for my own futuristic lifestyle.

Guitar Hero without a guitar [Procrastineering]

Wii Remote Wizard Working On Project Natal

Brian Ashcraft — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:00:00 +0000

You remember Johnny Lee, right? Sure you do, he’s the man who can make magic happen with the Wii Remote. And it seems he’s bringing his skills to Microsoft’s Project Natal controller.

While Lee is quick to say he doesn’t deserve credit for what we saw at E3, he does add, “The part I am working on has much more to do with making sure this can transition from the E3 stage to your living room – for which there is an even larger team of very smart, very hard working people involved.” Lee is currently a researcher in the Applied Sciences group at Microsoft.

He goes on to explain that the 3D sensor and camera vision are well ahead of what computer vision is capable of. “The sophistication and performance of the algorithms rival or exceed anything that I’ve seen in academic research, never mind a consumer product,” Lee writes on his blog.

If Lee is impressed and Lee impresses us, what exactly does that mean?!

Project Natal [procrastineering Thanks, Lokno!] [Pic]

Johnny Lee On Wii, Johnny Lee

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 10:30:00 +0000

Hey, it’s Johnny Lee! You all remember Johnny Lee, right? Dude’s like Beethoven with a Wii Remote in his hands. Anyways, in an interview with Game Informer, Johnny talks about all kinds of interesting stuff, including the fact he’s less a raving Nintendo fanboy than many of you would like to imagine:

I do play video games and I like video games, but I was much more excited about the capabilities of the controller than I was the Wii game console itself. It’s amazingly impressive that Nintendo just allowed the ability to connect it to a computer over Bluetooth, which I think has been great for both the hobby community as well as the research community.

If you like Johnny’s vids, you owe it to yourself to read Johnny’s words.
Expanding Horizon’s: Johnny Lee Sees The Wii’s Potential [Game Informer] [Image]

Another Brilliant Johnny Lee Wii Vid

Luke Plunkett — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 06:00:00 +0000

Nothing brightens up a day at Kotaku Tower like JOHNNY LEE, the man who can take a Wii and make magic happen. In this clip, Johnny shows us all how to take a Wii Remote, a sensor bar and a snappy pair of safety glasses, and use them to make a virtual reality display. Fantastic. If you’re the impatient type, the first money shot’s about 2:45 in.
[thanks Kdawg!]