This was the first time that Taiwan joined this summit, where heavyweights such as IBM, AT&T, and Cisco gathered to demonstrate their innovation and share their vision on building the future of cloud computing.

The OpenStack Foundation held its first OpenStack Application Hackathon in Taipei, Taiwan from March 18 to 20, gathering more than 200 individuals in 35 teams to develop innovative cloud-based applications for the City of the Future within 41 hours.

The L.I.K.A. Team, which consisted of four staff members from ITRI’s Service Systems Technology Center: Szu-Han Tzao, Chi-Kang Wu, Zhong-Wei Liao and Jian-Hong Liu, was singled out from the competition with “Phantom of L.I.K.A.”, a device that could measure the muscle signals of violinists as they play.

“The L.I.K.A. Team brings the talents in hardware setup, network architecture, cloud computing, and software design together to develop a novel service application,” said the L.I.K.A. leader Szu-Han Tzao in the OpenStack Summit. “We are thrilled to be present in this grand event and showcase our innovation to the global community of cloud experts!”

The wearable sensor developed by the L.I.K.A. team uses the Mechanomyogram (MMG) detection technology in an attempt to capture the vibration signals emitted by muscles and record subtle arm/finger movements. With the data computing from the OpenStack cloud platform, instant analysis could be tracked in terms of the dynamics of finger pressure and the speed of playing the strings.

In the future, it is able to gather and analyze data from the muscle movements of virtuoso players; therefore, offering a more efficient and precise learning method. The data collected could also be shared on social media and be used for online learning.

Given MMG’s potential to translate body signal to data collection, it is applicable to other fields besides music. For instance, artisanal skills such as ramen making or dough kneading could be transferable to learners via a more scientific and systematic method.

"Innovation is an essential part of Taiwan’s industrial transformation.” said Dr. Shiaw-Shian Yu, the General Director of ITRI’S Service Systems Technology Center.

Yu noted that the award-winning muscle signal-detection technology was originally used in the medical sector and the L.I.K.A. adapted it to fit the needs of music learning. With the rise of big data and cloud computing, more innovative applications will emerge, and ITRI will continue to play a leading role in promoting innovation.