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Teen Plays Videogame With Brain Signals
SkyFire360 writes "A team of ECoG (ElectroCorticography) researchers from Washington University in St. Louis successfully wired a young man's brain up to a computer and began reading the neurological firings in his brain. After analyzing the action potentials created when a neuron fires, they were able to get two-dimensional control of a cursor. Taking the research one step further, they decided to connect an old Atari 2600 to the signal processing computer to see if the young man could control the videogame system."
Space Invaders on an Atari 2600? Played with Mind Control?!? Very funny, guys.
:P
I suppose the researchers thought it would be hi-friggin'-larious to make the Atari Mindlink a reality. That way they really COULD play games with their mind! (Insert *snickers* and *gaffaws* here.) Considering that the original was a sham (you were really moving your brow to control the game), I'm not sure they really want to be associated with such "technology".
On the other hand, I suppose they deserve some serious Geek Cred for making such an obscure reference with this experiment. Most people wouldn't "get it" anyway, and would only see the neat research going on.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Doom5 controller signals stright from your brain.. ohh goodie-goodie :)
I always play video games when I don't want to use my brain.
Sadly the first game hooked directly to his brain was Yars Revenge, and now the poor lad just goes around headbutting walls.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Now I can control my mouse and have BOTH hands free?
Let the double-fisting begin!
Can you make a Beowulf cluster of... teens?
I'm posting this with my mind. I hope I dont get modded down. Oh crap, I can't silence my inner monologue! Oh crap! crap! crap... *carrier lost*
Online Starcraft RPG? At
Dietary fiber is like asynchronous IO-- Non-blocking!
Hand/Eye Coordination Sees Rapid Decline in American Youth
Hmm... and just when the thumb was beginning to replace the index finger as the most dextrous digit.
I saw this ten plus years ago on PBS. It was a professor somewhere could control hos sail boat with this. This is nothing new. Call me when they can do more than binary control. That would be interesting.
quis custodiet ipsos custodes
Stories like this always make me wonder whether the people involved actually decoded the signals firing off in that guy's brain. I thinks it's more likely he learned to create the signals they were looking for.
Wasn't the PS2 supposed to do this? i remember Kaz Harai saying it would be like the matrix.. today! I guess i will have to wait for the Ps3 super computer..
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The war on terror is a war for peace
As if playing videogames wasn't sedentary enough.
Can nobody else see he is using his left hand to move a mouse and his right hand just distracts you...
I was wondering why an epileptic patient - one seizure and from you clear the board? From TFA is sounds like this happened in the spare time they were waiting for a seizure to happen and they had him wired anyway - good example of either dovetailing or serendipity.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I hope you're talking about drinking beer...
That means the Nintendo Wii is out-of-date already. *sigh*
Sadly, 15 seconds after being hooked up to an "undisclosed operating system", little Timmy caught a virus and had to be rebooted.
I don't reply to Anonymous posts; if you have something to say to me, identify yourself or I won't reply.
I thought: this again? Then I read the article and the novelty seems that it's the first time it has been done on a teenager. :)
They've compared the reaction with older experiments done on adults.
The difference is that the teenager is both faster and more accurate.
I can't wait until they make a non-intrusive version that lets me use the keyboard without touching it
Last time I checked, space invaders was 1 dimensional movement not two.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
If we add ergonomical chairs to it too, it will mean a stress free gaming.
Total pWnAge for the powergamers !
Little curious as to how they will manage tons of macros, inventory, skills and shit but im sure theyll proabably be the first group in the society to be the officially confirmed telepaths/telekinesists.
Read radical news here
EEG, does not read action potentials, rather it reads synaptic input into the cortex not output from the cortex. The news article has this backwards.
This is moving us one step closer to the day when I can download porn from the 'net using only my mind, leaving BOTH hands free to... uh, nevermind!
Not close to the same but a few years ago I bought a used Zenith TV with built in Pong. Great deal, but it didn't have the controllers. Rather than build them right, my brother and I stuck stereo wire into the controller ports and held the bare wire ends in our hands. By carefully squeezing and releasing we could alter the resistance through our bodies (ok, it was altering the contact resistance mostly). We didn't have much problem playing but the method was so sensitive that we had to sit completely motionless without talking. We looked like a couple of zombies playing Pong with our minds. Too bad the TV fried itself in 3 weeks.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
I'm not too sure but the article seems to say that this method still requires invasive (i.e. surgical) techniques to extract the brain signals used to interface with the system. It did suggest that using EEG as a non-invasive alternative for getting those same signals, but I don't think they elaborated on why they didn't use it (I don't know much about either technique, so if someone more informed could enlighten me). I'm just wondering if there is a possibility of a cost-effective "thinking-cap" of some sort in the future that could provide the proper signals for gaming or other electronic activities, to avoid invasive brain plugs ala Matrix or Ghost in the Shell style interfaces.
I'm just speculating about the possibilities and have no real knowledge of the practicality or viability for either of these techniques in the near future. For people looking to opperate prosthetic limbs and such, a permanent surgical plug of sorts seems like a fine solution, but for people who don't want to have to upgrade that plug each time the technology advances, a non-invasive system seems like a more ideal solution.
Speaking as the father of one...
...although apparently they still haven't fixed the problem with his move-by-wire system.
Seriously, how many of you would get this, even if it required surgery, once the interface works well enough to be superior to keyboard+mouse?
I can't help but think about this /. article when I read about people controlling computer games with people's minds:
Stealth Sharks to Patrol the High Seas
So we can use our minds to control computers. And we can use computers to control the motor functions-- and utilize certain sensory faculties-- of certain animals. Both articles explain that even though these are both very exciting projects, they are also rather distant from any kind of supremely complex operation that would prove worrisome.
So I understand a really creepy sci-fi movie is many, many decades away from happening. But I'm also sure I'm not the only one who finds a marriage of the two ideas connoted by the developments simultaneously exciting and scary.
Would someone who knows more about the science behind these projects explain why we're oh-so-far from someone putting a nanocomputer in my head and playing me like a video game to patrol the streets of New York City remotely?
I'm funny. If you come see me perform, I will make you laugh.
Imagine the possibilities, and/or the problems, with force feedback. Virtual reality would have nothing on that!
from exhaustion
If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well it were done quickly... MacBeth
was their research into erectile dysfunction therapy and Atari 2600 games. Adventure worked pretty well, but Freeway was problematic.
--- What?
He should totally duke it out with Kevin Warwick deathmatch style.
Why'd they mention that the teen has epilepsy? What's the importance in that detail?
http://www.rubberroom101.com/henry/13.jpg
I must commend these guys for their research, from now on all the misfits and unacceptables that populate slashdot can be stored away in a big warehouse, wired up to old hardware where they will popoluate a virtual world, oh the joy you will never have to see that nasty sunlight again.
wait... wouldn't Pole Position have also been a good candidate?
When I was a kid I used to be able to finish Super Mario Bros on the nintendo playing with my feet! Of course, I was using one of these.
There's one thing I don't quite get, from TFA, they put an emphasis on how he's playing a two-dimensional game. Right, Space Invaders is display two dimensionally, however the player movements are one dimensional, but then they say, "We then gave him a more challenging version in two-dimensions and he mastered two levels there playing only with his imagination". What the hell does it mean?
Oh and in case it allows people to control a cursor on the screen, I'd love to see at work on the basic everyday life mouse operations, to see how well it works. Makes me wonder, is there any DYI "mind control" kit out there so that you can process your brain signals to experiment with on a computer?
You just got troll'd!
With this new system I developed, I can play games with brain signals! I send a brain signal to my finger to press the correct key, and presto! The avatar moves!
I guess we'll hear teens talking on X-Box Live about their bitchin' new brain cylinders next.
Blast away those thetans by wiring your E-Meter into space invaders.
Cyborgs aint far away
That's next, right?
Don't video games all come with warnings about epilepsy?
I'm convinced from playing on public BF1942 servers that, for most players, no brain usage is involved.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I could smoke this clown at Halo2, bring it on brain boy!
i see nothing new or revolutionary about this. As someone said previously, this has been around for decades. When I was in elemntary school one of my classmate's father was involved with working with brain waves and computers. They had developed a computer that had sensors that went on your thumbs and you thought where you wanted to go or move and your character would go. It was some stupid game made specfically for this computer where you had a bird and flew around dodging things that were scrolling acorss the screen. He brought in a demo computer that sat for awhile in our computer lab, used it a couple times and worked pretty well. This was a good 10 years ago, not sure how playing pong makes it any better.
"Teen Plays Videogame With Brain Signals"
Hasn't this already been done?
1. Neurons fire in the child's brain
2. The nervous system transports these brain signals to the fingers
3. The fingers operate the game pad
how much smaller is reaction time with brain control in comparison to without brain control (p.ex. via fingers)?
Hey what a great idea! Let's strap a kid that suffers from epileptic seizures in front of a video game. Let's hope he's not suffering from Photosensitive Epilepsy
I can't wait to overlock my brain!
I will bend like a reed in the wind.
I had to snicker at how TFA had to invest a few paragraphs to fully describe Space Invaders for those young-uns who may not even have heard of it. A screenshot may have helped.
Oh, btw - "Atari" was a home video game system. It's on Wikipedia. No, really - go look it up...
The first thing that came into my mind was Questworld from the "Real Adventures of Jonny Quest".
Did anyone else noticed on the High resolution picture, the Space Invader cartridge isn't loaded in the Atari??
It's completely empty...Yet it's being displayed on a Dell Monitor...
Unless they have a completely different system underneath running the game, this picture is 100% staged.
What a way to advertise.
And besides, they suck... 0 points and almost dead.
It's left blank because I have nothing to say to you punks!
to me it's more amazing, that they found a teen that actually has signals of a brain...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
It's all nice and all but can you use it with linux and control xwindows?
On more serious note, I am more interested in the ability to send audio, video, data or any signals back to the brain. This would be more useful in stomping out handicaps.
\
Teens Have Brain Signals!
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
This kind of story comes up every once in a while like it is some sort of break through in technology, yet I remember sitting in a small conference room of the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas in 1993 listening to some guy talk about monitoring alpha waves in the brain and using that feedback to move a cursor.
Looked to me from the video in TFA he still had to use his hand as if he was using a keyboard. Were they monitoring anything more than motor control?
What if the hokey-pokey really is what it's all about?
This sounds great! You can play...play, uh...what can you play on an Atari?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Some months ago, a friend and me participated in an experiment conducted by the TU Graz - we were wired, took some calibration tests and were finally able to play Pong against each other - only with wired caps on our heads. It sort of worked, but was difficult to control without a proper training period.It worked by comparing our brain waves while thinking of moving our left or right arm and mapping the characteristic output to left-right commands. Sometimes it would work quite well but a lot of times the panel just would move utterly weird. I believe that this can work well, depending on how much you're used to it - we only had like one hour of training.
n/t
...when you can play it using just your brain signals ;)
No, really. I have. In fact, this is not very uncommon, the only difference here is that the EEG was used to control an ATARI, instead of pre-written (for the EEG) PC games. I used to do Neuro-feedback therepy, which mostly consisted of sitting in a chair, and controlling various objects on screen. Most of them were simple things like getting a ball on a teeter-totter to move back and forth (which I could finally do). The theory is that once a person learns to subconciously change their own brainwave pattern, they're more easily able to overcome anxiety, depression, ADD, and other related syndromes. It was actually a really refreshing experience, I would walk out, every day, as if my mental state had just been wiped clean, which was great.
Anyway, I was only able to do it for about 2 months or so, and by that point, I could already control some things onscreen just by thinking about it. Eventually, you're neurons are routed so that thinking "go right" causes whatever criteria is neccessary to achieve that (say, lowered beta frequency waves) to automatically happen. If you were to do it for a good year or so, it seems quite probable that you could do something as complicated as play Mario Bros. on an EEG.
What I'm most interested in, though, as an electronic musician, is the ability to play music from an EEG... via something like Max/MSP... it wouldn't be too difficult to do, and eventually, you're just sitting there, thinking the notes, and they just play, once you've trained yourself, enough.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
No only if they can make those sensors small enough to fit in an ear bud the apple and ms can use it to encrypt/decrypt music and video to your brainwave signature upon download. I can also see this being used in washrooms for hands free flushing...
While this an interesting development, a less invasive approach is in the works to help disabled people use computers in the near term. An electro-oculographic cursor control system from Boston College called Eagle Eyes will start selling for $1,200 each in early 2007.
The Opportunity Foundation of America is working with them to promote and subsidize the cost of the units to as little as a $200 donation. Such a system will fill a much needed niche for communication and education systems for people with ALS and other motor control disabilities.
Now this is interesting.
So what if they manage to give more complex controls. Maybe the ability to parse a letter that you think about or a word you focus on.
What if they could read you mind......
If you wear a tinfoil hat you now have my deepest sympathy.
Now imagine running around in a 3d videogame with this, you have a small pair of lightwieght glasses(not goggles, glasses, i mean the size of a pair of oakleys). Now imagine a good set of headphones. Now imagine you just think about running forward.
Immersion.
You mad
Just a few days ago, they were trying to get gamers in shape and keep them active, now they're removing ALL physical aspects of the game?
I personally can't wait until they can tap the visual cortex, then we won't even have to use our eyes!
Hooray for atrophy!
Joking aside, this is a snazzy development that will probably go a long way toward an eventual cure for paralysis, as well as a nifty new form of input for the handicapped and motor-function-impaired (is there an adjective that sums that up?)
taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lambda_Driver
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
... a scratch teenager.
Just continue to press the button when you reach the top of the pit and then move E.T. to the left or right until he's completely out. 99% of the hate on E.T. for the 2600 is because people don't know how to play it. It's a fun game when you know what you are doing. I would love to try this mind controlled 2600 incidentally, I think they might be on to a successful consumer application here.
Regular Meta Moderators are not more likely to get mod points.
This is not measuring the action potential caused by the firing of a single neuron, as the writeup seems to indicate. This is measuring the aggregate signal from tens of thousands of neurons. The typical recording grid is a flexible material (silicone?) with a grid of circular electrodes about 5mm in diameter. The surgeon can place the grid on the cortical surface or cut off a strip and push it into a sulcus. Clearly not a single-cell recording.
When the kid get's unhooked, does he say, "I know Kung Fu"? 'Cause I feel like i've seen this movie before...
The computing power of a Beowulf Cluster of teens, where T is the power of one teen and n is the number of teens in the network, is T^(1/n).
Even worse, if you connect your cluster to the internet, the effective computing power becomes T^(1/n)/B, where B is the bandwidth of the connection.
There is a special exception to this, however, that takes into account the Mischief Coefficient. For any problem, P, with a fractional mischief component of M, the expected power becomes T^(1/(1-M)n).
As we can see, for any problem with a Mischief Component of 1, the power of the cluster becomes infinite. In fact, using my Beowulf Cluster of Teens, I was able to determine that the more teens you have, the more infinite their power gets. For example, according to my BCoT, if you have 100 teens, your cluster would be 10 times more infinitely powerful than an infinitely powerful cluster of only 10 teens.
paintball
This is still very primitive, and very risky, and very omg-leave-my-brain-alone-ish. What happens when I am losing and my brain is behaving wildly as I bitterly curse the guy on my team?
On the other hand, if this tech goes far enough and can become mobile, we could have Predator - like soldiers who can control shoulder-mounted turrets with their eyes while they fire their small-arms manually. That would be awesome.
More likely it would be the "Rumble Plug." Need to keep some sanitizing gel around for that...
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
Namaste. I've been working as the systems administrator at the Neurodevelopment Center in Providence, RI. We're a psychological clinic focusing on using EEG-controlled neurofeedback to treat a whole bunch of psychiatric disorders, mostly things on the autistic spectrum and various forms of ADHD. The technology is still very new, and probably not quite as effective as one could hope, but we still get very good results - around 70% of our clients show significant improvement. Brain-Machine interfaces will thoroughly revolutionize the way think about psychiatry. Of course, the big pharmaceutical companies have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, so expect to here a lot from detractors and skeptics in the years to come.
Why waste their time on Atari 2600 games when they could have teach the kid some russian and steal TEH MOST ADVANCED FIGHTER JET ON EARTH????!!!!111one
Of course, I'm talking about the original Firefox: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083943/
(nt)
Finally, the Mind Link-exclusive game Bionic Breakthrough will be playable!
Or just as playable as Impossible Mission.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
While I can see the usefulness particularly for people with serious disabilities, I thought one of the original redeeming factors of video games was that it helped build and improve hand-eye coordination. If a perfectly abled person was using this, then that's just plain lazy. At least before, people were at least giving their fingers a workout.
Or was the Atari 2600 controlling him?
... and then they built the supercollider.
I need a mod point - did I mod this thread?
-- Trinity in high heels carrying a whip: The donimatrix - there is no spoonerism
Just check the literature on Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI): this has been done 10 years ago. It has even been done in MRI scanners: check this http://in.news.yahoo.com/040829/139/2fr2y.html
Any attempts of using magnetoencephalography for this purpose ?