Next Big Thing – singing gloves

Is this a Spinal Tap thing? No, I will not Smell the Glove.

Nothing so crude. Science-wizards at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver have created a next-gen Theremin in the form of these motion-sensing gloves – which produce an eerily-human synthesised singing voice.

Sounds handy. How do they work?

Ha ha. The gloves use motion sensors to map their position in space, with the right hand controlling pitch. Vowel sounds and consonants are created by opening and closing your fist, mimicking the shape of the vocal tract, while stop consonants are  You can create stop consonants by tapping buttons on the left-hand glove. With practice, it’s possible to create coherent words.

Interesting. What’s it in aid of?

The gloves were originally designed to give a helping hand to those with speech difficulties – the singing feature was developed afterwards. We’d put good money on Bjork using them on her next album… 

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Dan Grabham Editor-in-Chief

About

Dan is Editor-in-chief of Stuff, working across the magazine and the Stuff.tv website.  Our Editor-in-Chief is a regular at tech shows such as CES in Las Vegas, IFA in Berlin and Mobile World Congress in Barcelona as well as at other launches and events. He has been a CES Innovation Awards judge. Dan is completely platform agnostic and very at home using and writing about Windows, macOS, Android and iOS/iPadOS plus lots and lots of gadgets including audio and smart home gear, laptops and smartphones. He's also been interviewed and quoted in a wide variety of places including The Sun, BBC World Service, BBC News Online, BBC Radio 5Live, BBC Radio 4, Sky News Radio and BBC Local Radio.

Areas of expertise

Computing, mobile, audio, smart home