Power Glove
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Hacked NES Power Glove controls a modular synth with finger wriggles
Look Mum No Computer has hacked a Power Glove to control a modular synth with finger gestures, and it's just as weird as you'd expect.
Robot Chicken animator uses modded Power Glove for work
Next time someone tells you that Nintendo's Power Glove accessory was a flop, point them to Dillon Markey, an animator who works on projects like Cartoon Network's Robot Chicken. Markey has been using a modified Power Glove for more than a year now, using it to help him control the devices and software he needs to get the right shot. But because making the Power Glove feature a Bluetooth keyboard just wasn't enough, Markey's modified version also sports a retractable set of tweezers and a sensor that causes it to speak when given a fist bump. (Unfortunately, the phrase it speaks is unsuitable for print here. But it rhymes with "ducking awesome.") A short documentary by Ava Benjamin was posted to Vimeo earlier this week, and it shows Markey using and reminiscing about the iconic piece of wearable technology. "I see this and it's like the coolest thing in the world, it's like a cyborg arm," Markey says in the video, which you can watch after the break. See? The Power Glove wasn't a failure, it was just ahead of its time! Yeah, that's it - 26 years ahead of its time.
Filmmakers turn to Kickstarter to finish their Power Glove documentary
Controlling a computer with gestures is almost passé these days, but how quickly we forget that Nintendo and Mattel released a kooky gadget that basically let people do just that back in 1989. Now, a new Kickstarter project aims to revisit that most maligned of wearables: the Power Glove. Yeah, we know, it's so bad... but that didn't stop a trio of filmmakers from tracing the thing's trajectory from Christmas must-have to disappointing punchline to cultural touchstone to repurposed creative tool. The documentary -- lovingly titled The Power of Glove -- has already been in the works for over a year, and there's plenty to show for it in the team's trailer (check it out after the jump). All they need to bring the project home now is another $15,000 to complete the final round of interviews and assemble the finished product, a process they hope to power through before the end of next year.
'The Power of Glove' is a feature-length Power Glove documentary
Filmmakers Adam Ward, Andrew Austin and Paula Kosowski have taken it upon themselves to chronicle the creation and impact of one of the most infamous video game peripherals of all time, the Power Glove. Their film, The Power of Glove, is a feature-length documentary built upon interviews with Mattel hardware and software engineers involved in the glove's design, as well as accounts of people whose lives have been impacted by the device, such as musical artist Yeuda "Side Brain" Ben-Atar. The film is still under production according to its Facebook page, and as such no release date/method has been announced. We're hoping that release comes sooner rather than later, as we desperately need to know how much skrilla it takes to get one of the custom "Beat It" gloves seen in the trailer. We've got "big bank," as it were – let's talk about this.
Blood Dragon's Power Glove soundtrack gets a grip on pre-orders
The soundtrack for Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, the 80s-styled futuristic shooter spinoff, is available for pre-order now on iTunes for $10, scheduled to release with the game on May 1. The soundtrack comes from Power Glove – the band, not the NES peripheral – an Australian duo that dabbles in retro, post-apocalyptic tunes.Blood Dragon, when it drops on May 1, should look something like that walkthrough video embedded above. We played about an hour of it and thought it had the potential to "be less a bogus journey and more an excellent adventure."%Gallery-186721%
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon drops 3 retro tracks on Soundcloud
Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is enough of a real thing to receive three high-octane tracks from Melbourne retro electronica group Power Glove, available for a listen on Soundcloud. Blood Dragon appears to be an 80s-inspired version of Far Cry 3's island setting, and the music definitely captures that vibe.So far a series of leaks and Konami code gif hunts place Blood Dragon on XBLA, PSN and PC. For a taste of the Blood of the Dragon, listen to the three tracks from Power Glove: Power Core, Sloan's Assault and Warzone.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]
Ben Heck makes Super Glove mod for Kinect, takes strain out of gestures (video)
Sick of trying to control your 360 using Kinect, semaphore and advanced flailing? Modgod Ben Heck, deciding he wanted to be more Minority Report and less lunatic, has been working on Power Glove 2.0 to improve the console's navigation experience. The prototype glove is tricked out with Arduino, an accelerometer, a gyroscope and some fingertip buttons. With the addition of IR and a little coding magic, the 360's interface can be controlled via subtle gestures, with increased functionality / style points also apparent. Check out the latest episode of The Ben Heck Show after the break for a detailed walkthrough of the project and a demo of the glove in action.
Painting with fire, thanks to a cybernetic glove (video)
Fire: the most primal element. "It's a living thing," Robert De Niro once said, "It breathes, it eats, and it hates. The only way to beat it is to think like it." Unless you're an artist – then you rig up a series of tubes, pump in some kerosene, and connect it to a Power Glove-like control device. Next thing you know, you're "fire painting," making that hateful beast dance and strut for your amusement. "Its burning can be handled by subtle movements of the sensory data glove for tactile formulation of the fiery image," the artist explains, "Thus, the image can be manipulated, yet it constantly escapes control." To know what it's like to summon flame with a flick of your wrist – while sporting a creepy smiley-face welding mask, no less – see the video above.
Game controlling glove now available for pre-order and 'The Wizard' remakes
We know how hard it can be to expend precious energy on something as trivial as a keyboard – we spend all day doing exactly that! So it's with proud, near-jubilant excitement that we bring you news of the gaming glove "Peregrine," which allows for keyboard-free game playing, becoming available for pre-order. It's not exactly equipped to handle twitch shooters: the Peregrine was made with MMOs in mind. Rather than push down all those pesky keyboard buttons, it allows for up to 40 different configurable movements instead.The $129 device (that's if you pre-order -- it'll be $149 otherwise) runs on USB and will connect as a keyboard, so compatibility shouldn't be too much of an issue. You can quit writing your Power Glove 2.0 fanfic right now – this ain't it. We do, however, expect to see a YouTube-derived sequel to The Wizard around the end of January, when the first pre-orders are expected to ship to consumers. Get on that, internet! [Via Engadget]
'Turbo' movie trumps Natal, Sphere and Wii MotionPlus
We talked about the trailer for Turbo back in April, and now director Jarrett Conaway has put the entire short film up on the web for maximum watchability. While it's a short film, it manages to make a movie about video games look like ... a movie about video games (and not some overblown Bay-gasm). It also stars Justin Chon, one of the bit players from this weekend's mega-money-making New Moon, though he's thankfully not playing an emo crybaby in this. Conaway describes his film as "The Karate Kid meets Tron," but it actually feels more like The Wizard updated with tons of CGI. Except there's no Nintendo Power Glove in it. But don't fret, there are gloves in this short film. And they definitely have some power. Check out all of Turbo after the break. Conaway is hoping to make a full-length version of the film soon, which means you could see Turbo: The Video Game of the Video Game Movie at a store near you.
Power Glove granted infinitely more power, bluetooth, and accelerometer in honor of 20th birthday
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Nintendo PowerGlove, and yes, birthday cakes are in order. To celebrate, game designer Matt Mechtley has augmented it with Bluetooth and accelerometer chips for a more modern take on the hand peripheral -- think of it as a more assimilated version of the Wiimote-embedded glove we covered in 2006. If you're interested in following in his footsteps, instructions are available at Instructables and in the video form after the break -- jump to 10:50 if you want to see it in action both with a test program and a brief glimpse at virtual boxing. Read - Product pageRead - Instructables How-to
Retrospective: Nintendo's past peripherals
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/nintendo/Peripherals_that_paved_the_way_for_the_Wii_Fit_Balance_Board'; With Wii Fit (and, thus, the Balance Board) hitting stores recently, we figured a nostalgic stroll down memory lane would be nice. So, what we've done is compiled a list of all the peripherals that helped pave the way for the Balance Board, Nintendo's latest peripheral. So, let's not waste any time and get down to business. To start your journey, just click on the red text in the bottom right-hand corner there.
39 sealed Power Gloves, a great gift for nearly 5 octopi
All right, here's the situation: You're staging an NES-themed musical (off-Broadway) and the big finale requires a shiny, new Power Glove for all 40 members of the chorus line. You already have access to one unopened Glove that your grandmother gave you as a present in 1995 (way after it was a hot-ticket item), but you need the other 39 before the end of the month or the opening night of your show will be ruined!This is the only situation that we could think of to justify anyone bidding on the lot of 39 sealed, Japanese Power Gloves that recently showed up as a bulk lot on eBay. Apparently we're not imaginative enough, though, because the Australia-based auction already has four bids with a high offer of AU$90.88 (not including the hundreds of dollars in shipping costs). Maybe we're just not "bad" enough to realize the economic and cultural potential of owning what is most likely the world's largest collection of sealed Power Gloves in one place. So we leave it as an open question to our commenters: What would you do with 39 Power Gloves?[Via GameSniped]
I love ten Power Gloves. They're so bad.
Here's our variation of the "tree falls down in the woods" question: If ten Power Gloves are inside sealed boxes, never to be opened, are they still awful controllers? We think yes, but we'll never know for sure. Whatever dangerously insane collector decides to buy a case of ten unopened Japanese Power Gloves is very unlikely to be insane enough to ruin their value by opening any of them. Apparently these Power Gloves were a retailer's dead stock (the Power Glove was a spectacular failure in Japan), and have thus been put on eBay in their original form, as they came from the manufacturer. The item is at a current price of $209 AUD ($180 USD), should you have the desire to build a fort out of failed peripherals. The Power Glove is a reminder that motion-based controllers will never work on Nintendo consoles -- especially when those controllers require external sensors.[Via GameSniped]
Sony patents PowerGlove, but didn't The Wizard patent that?
The following is a quote stemming from Sony's latest patent submission: "The central body and at least one protrusion are configured to capture a user's hand movements." Hand movements... protrusions... that picture! It's pretty much the PowerGlove from that 80's movie, The Wizard. That damn glove helped him to kick ass at Mario Bros. 3, so perhaps the same design will assist in conquering some PS3 games.Also included in this patent are a number of claims. These range from measuring the movement and bends of your individual fingers all the way to the inclusion of force-feedback. If this thing actually came to exist, it would be pretty sweet. Not that it would be practical or anything, but it would be cool to try out. We could all turn out to be Wizards, you know.
Wii Power Gloves? Nope.
What's more useless: plastic shove-on attachments or boxing gloves with Wiimote pockets? We suppose those attachments are, but these 'un-official' Wii boxing gloves rank among the lamest of 3rd-party peripherals.Maybe if you have a tendency to fling your Wiimote the gloves are $22 well spent; then again, Wii Sports' boxing requires players to hold the Wiimote vertically. You won't be punching with these gloves on; you'll be knocking on doors. Awkward.A better Wii "Power Glove": Wii Remote Power Glove Hack[Via VideoGamesBlogger]
Wii Remote Power Glove Hack
When Nintendo first revealed that its new system would use a motion-sensitive controller, comparisons were inevitably drawn to the company's first experiment with VR, the NES Power Glove. Well, all those comparisons just became a whole lot more apt now that a Japanese hacker has mounted a Wii remote on a power glove.The prototype hybrid controller uses specially mounted triggers on the thumb and middle finger to simulate the A and B buttons, and even includes an opening for the nunchuck attachment in the back. The video below shows how the setup allows for some cool Minority-Report-style interaction in pointer-based games, but we can't help but worry about the inevitable arm fatigue caused by holding the glove straight out in front of you. Ouch!Previously: Illinois students revive the Power Glove[Via Engadget, Thanks Mike]
Power Glove mod merges with Wiimote
For all of those people out there who didn't manage to grab a Wii at launch -- and probably won't be able to until next year -- there comes a moderate form of compensation in seeing what crazy Wii-themed mods people who did have come up with. The latest to pop up is one that retro-loving Nintendo fans will surely appreciate: a fully functional Wiimote Power Glove, complete with working finger buttons. The burst of nostalgia at seeing the Wii-glove in action is definitely enough to last us until the next Wii shipment, although we can't quite shake the nagging concern that this guy must have spent a whole lot of time not playing his Wii in order to create it.[Via Slashgear]
Illinois students revive the Power Glove
Tilt-sensitive controllers? Magic-wand-style pointers? That's just kids stuff. Everyone knows that the Power Glove is the only video game controller so good that it's so bad. Now, two University of Illinois grad students are bringing the concept into the next generation with a prototype glove controller of their own.The glove, developed as part of a technology entrepreneurship class by Jason Skowronski and Shivani Jain, accurately models the bending of finger joints and the hand's position and orientation in space, according to a (Champaign, Ill.) News-Gazette story. While video games are the most obvious and lucrative application for such a device, the glove is also being considered for use as a virtual mobile keyboard or a sign language interpreter.The pair is reportedly trying to get the technology into the sub-$100 range as they patent their ideas and pitch them to game companies. We hope someone bites -- just imagine being able to flip someone the bird and see it accurately recreated in your game of Barbie's Horse Adventure 2: the Revenge. How's that for interactive?
