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Use a Belkin Wemo switch: http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F...

I've written a simple utility to switch them on / off based on serial number:

See: https://github.com/d-w/toggle_...

Works for me.

Cheers,
Dave

PS: For extra points, wear & monitor a Neurosky EEG monitor: http://neurosky.com/products-m...
Write a listener to recognise when you want the switch on (easy to recognise certain meditation patterns) and then use this to toggle the wemo switch closest.
(I've done this - just not on Github ... yet)

On my android phone, I can type words by swiping between letters, rather than simply poking at them with my fingers. I'm amazed how well this tech works and how fast I can write with it.

I know that eye trackers exist (and that one can select letters by hovering over them) but does eye tracking + swipe exist? If it doesn't, it would be straightforward to prototype it easily (originally you had to buy it, but now it seems to be part of the main OS. http://www.swype.com/

...actually, after a bit of googling it looks like others have thought of this: http://sciencenordic.com/texti...

Other human computer interaction options would be the various brain wave headsets which are now appearing (e.g. from google I see http://neurosky.com/ http://interaxon.ca/ etc). They tend to be less accurate, but are probably useful for things like controlling the environment (lights on and off) etc. It wouldn't be difficult to interface them with some basic home automation hardware.

I would think that finding a mix off input devices would be ideal in terms of preventing fatigue.

Once a bit of time has passed, you might consider spending some time looking through the faculty pages at your local University's CS Department. Get in contact with them. There is a lot of work (and funds) going on into HCI right now. This seems like the type of project that would get a lot of support from graduate students and faculty.

Please come back to us with a follow-up post. Don't forget to include a fundraising link for equipment costs. I would certainly contribute.

The technologies used by the researchers for recording and stimulating the brain are both well-known.

My first neurofeedback device was an OpenEEG. It ended up costing just over $300 and took about a week's worth of effort. While the end result was a functional EEG device, limited software support and hassle of use (dealing with ten20 paste, keeping electrodes in place) resulted in rare usage.

I highly recommend the MindWave Mobile as a cost effective, simple to use, and well supported EEG. Accuracy is low-moderate given that there's only a single electrode, but the device works and different states of focus are clearly captured.

For a slightly more expensive, more extensible and accurate EEG, check out the Emotiv products.

http://www.neurosky.com/

I could see this used:

- to help people move whose nerves are damaged. Combine that with mind readers (ex. Emotiv, NeuroSky) and we're part way there. We'd also need something to send feedback feeling from the severed area to the brain.

- to help prevent atrophy in people in coma by animating them. (Hmm... could it be used to animate the dead...?)

- to teach people handy skills (which is what the article suggests), remotely even.

- as material in sci-fi movies to remote control characters, either to commit heinous crimes or remote control the sub-standard hero into moving like an expert.

Any other uses?

Like the Neurosky gadgets?
http://www.neurosky.com/

What the guys at NeuroSky are describing is complete vaporware. I work with brain signal data myself and know quite a few people who do. Basically, at present there are two methods that kind of work:

You implant a bunch of electrodes into a person's brain. See Michael Black's work (Brown University) on analyzing this data. You get roughly 30 bit per minute out of this. With some training a bit more. This is done for people who are seriously disabled, i.e. quadruplegics where you implant the electrodes in the motor cortex (useless for people who cannot move their limbs).

An alternative is to use EEGs. They usually come with about 100 electrodes, take an hour to put on and require lots of conductive gel. For instance Klaus Muller's group (Fraunhofer Institute Berlin) does such work. They get up to 20 bit per minute data rates. And yes, you can play simple games (they've got a cool demo of a person playing pong using the electrodes).

The big caveat is that there's just absolutely no way you can put a few electrodes onto your brain and get the information out that the NeuroSky people are claiming. The entire stuff looks really fishy, when you check their homepage http://www.neurosky.com/. Pretty much no information on who does the work, what their technology is, etc.