Zyxio is a Las Vegas based startup that we’ve been tracking for a while now. They’ve developed proprietary technology called SensaWaft that lets people control computers via air flow. As in, you can control a mechanical device, or a mouse pointer on a screen, or whatever, by blowing. How hard you blow, as well as minute differences in direction, are converted to commands.
The possible products from the technology are limitless. Combine this with voice recognition for less dangerous in-car computing. Or design applications to help the handicapped. You can get an idea for how the technology works in the video above.
The company is busy productizing the technology. But today they’re launching a contest to crowdsource new product ideas. If you have an amazing idea for the technology, you can get paid to help them build a product around it. And if you just want to vote on ideas from others, you can do that too.
Go to BeAMindBlower and register for more details. Submit your idea in as much or as little detail as you like. Others can register and vote. At the end of November the company will take the top ranked ideas and put them to a final round of voting, which ends on December 13.
Five winners will be selected in each of five categories: PC/laptops/netbooks, games/multimedia/entertainment, assistive/multimodal/virtual reality, smartphones/in-vehicle/enterprise and digital music/graphic design. The winners will each be offered paid advisory board positions at Zyxio and asked to spend 10 hours per month for six months working on their projects. They’ll spend some of that time in Las Vegas (all expenses paid, except, I imagine, anything involving illegal substances or sexual activities). They’ll be paid $6,000 for their time, and have the chance to see their ideas become reality.
And people have an incentive to vote on ideas, too. Anyone who votes is entered into a sweepstakes. Two Samsung Go netbooks and two Verizon Droid phones will be awarded.
We’ll check back in on the contest over the coming weeks to see how things are going. And we’ll likely be interviewing some of the people with interesting ideas. I love stuff like this.
Sounds like a something that would make me dizzy.
well, actually it is really low pressure, like much less than blowing soap bubbles, for example
Can tryhards join? If so I’m in.
Brilliant marketing campaign – everyone who signs up to propose a product is now emotionally involved with the company, and will spread the news like wildfire.
I thought “blow” technology has been around since Adam met Eve….
Well I have submitted my entry: Virtual Wind Instruments.
Check it under the category: Assistive, Multimodal, Virtual Reality
VOTE for me! cheers. I go by the user name: philmetz
OK, perhaps cool… but “limitless”? Hyperbole much?
Very very cool marketing, and with great incentives to go with it. Nice play Zyxio!
it’s certainly cheap for the company to go this route.
Our approach is not for everybody, we respect your opinion EH, however keep in mind that it doesn’t fill the role of jobs requiring highly specialized knowledge. We just though that enabling a community of people with all diverse backgrounds to deliver and elect the ideas that will be most useful and fun makes sense.
kind of dumb… also they don’t provide enough information… in regards to what the limitations are of the sensor… like sensitivity…
A for creativity, Fail for execution..
Just want to say great job to Joe Adam and the Zyxio team. The idea is mind blowing…
cool idea, kinda hands-free for everything, man i need to shoot w that!
So they are looking for Blow-Jobs?
I’m having a hard time figuring out how this would be useful for anything at all… actually I think that is exactly what has happened, they asked themselves the same thing.
Almost a – “hey lets make a sensor” – and days/weeks/months later – “this sensor is awesome! WTF we going to use it for?” – “um… dude… contest”
There is no way anyone would buy this or go out of their way to get one for free. Give it away like the CueCat? wiki says commercial failure.
Demos of scrolling and zooming? so much easier to pinch my fingers on my free and easier to use track pad.
Tons of apps on the iPhone already do mic blowing and the Nintendo DS has this in many games.
I say put it in a chuck-e-cheese game and have kids navigate through a maze for tickets.
Secret blow passwords to log into your computer.
Blowsercises help you lose weight and the app tracks your calories burned by the type of Blowsercises you do.
Put it in a kiosk at the mall with a web cam – sell video to Jay Leno.
Sell it to old people so when they fall and can’t get up they can control their wheel chair to come and get them.
Stephen Hawkings can now adjust his thermostat by blowing how much air he wants his thermostat to blow out.
Awesome idea I can’t wait to buy one.
maybe next wave MMO stuff: chat and blow
Great possibilities for multimodal interaction in many scenarios. I’ll definitely keep an eye on this one technology.