A Minority Report Interface for the Rest of Us
From: Technology Review - 11/16/2010
By: John Pavlus 

Two programmers have developed Toscanini, a free gestural computer interface
that provides a connection between a user's movements and digital instruments
such as synthesizers, keyboards, or anything that can be controlled through a
MIDI connection. The software, developed during a 24-hour hacking contest,
runs on Texas Instruments' Wireless Watch Development Tool, which is equipped
with an accelerometer. "Currently it acts like a MIDI keyboard, except you
can control the knobs with your movements," says co-creator Lindsey Mysse.
"But it doesn't have to make music. It can control a mouse. You just put it
on your wrist and make something happen." The software is in alpha and uses
Max/MSP, a visual programming language, so other programmers can modify it.
"Unlike Kinect or Wii, this is intended to be hacked," says co-creator Robby
Grodin. "You can record your movements as musical 'macros,' or build your own
apps." Mysse says Toscanini will be useful to artists who want to add
randomness to their digital works. 

Read the entire article and view a video at:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/techspecs/26028/?p1=A5

Links:
Max/MSP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_%28software%29

Toscanini Gestural Interface
http://toscaniniinterfacing.com/

Music Accelerometer Watch Already Works
http://evolver.fm/2010/10/16/boston-music-hack-day-music-accelerometer-watch-already-works/

Source code
http://github.com/lindseymysse/Toscanini

http://toscanini.tumblr.com/

A wrist-worn, automatic music-maker
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2010/11/08/a_wrist_worn_automatic_music_maker/

The eZ430-Chronos Wireless Watch Development Tool
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDJIBydJvoM