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]

Send an email to Michael McWhertor, the author of this post, at mike@kotaku.com.