Slashdot Mirror
Brain/Computer Gaming Interface Coming in 2008
An anonymous reader writes "Emotiv Systems today unveiled a brain/computer interface system with a helmet and software applications at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The Project Epoc system can move objects based on a gamer's thoughts, reflect facial expressions, and respond to the excitement or calm the gamer mentally exerts, the company said....While Emotiv is not yet ready to announce any partnerships, [they] did say the product will be coming to market in 2008."
I remember a freind who had a Sega Genesis? controller that slipped on your index finger and supposedly moved by thought. What turned out was it was really good at knowing which way you are moving your finger.
Sorry, no links. The only thing I remember about it, it was around 1995-96 and I think I saw an add in gamepro for it.
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I've been using a system called bio-feedback that interfaces with the brain through a series of very small electrodes, sometimes as few as 3 (one on the back of each earlobe, and one on either of the hemispheres). It works by displaying your brainwaves in a way which the brain finds easy to understand, and forcing you to enter a certain frame of mind to control the program. This means the treatment is often done in the form of games. The games the treatment uses are usually very simple (for example, one called Space Race forces the user to relax and to concentrate in order to cause one spaceship to speed up and two others to slow down), but with enough electrodes in the right places, and with an (indeterminate to someone outside of the industry by myself, and probably varying from person to person) amount of training, I can see this coming to fruition in the near future. I really don't know whether 2008 is a realistic date, but it is coming, and sooner than a lot of you think. On a related note, the laptop in my therapist's office required that the electrodes enter a box, which output to a parallel connection, which they had to send to a parallel/serial adapter, then to a serial/USB adapter. Needless to say, it took me a while to trace the amalgam of cords sitting on that desk.
On a TV show from the early 90's called "Beyond 2000" there was an episode that showed a lady hooked up to electrodes, controlling a computer character in a 3D environment by thought. I have often wondered where that technology had gone. With as fast as computer technology moves I thought it would have been here well before 15 years. I have Googled for info on that epidsode but can't find any.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Combine this with the Sony's announcement today that PS3 will have a persistent online "street" where everyone will have an avatar and their own apartment, and it's basically the metaverse. Sweet.
Call it lacking an open mind, if you will, but, by the sound of it, it sounds like a lot of work and a heck of a learning curve just to play a game. I thought the game designers were finally learning the idea that some of us just want to play a quick and unchallenging round of a game to relax, rather than have to spend a month just getting past the learning curve.
And the most successful interfaces and peripherals are those who don't require much practice either. Take the mouse for example. I actually made the experiment of taking my 80 year old grandma who's never touched a computer before, and trying to see how she does in a city building game. Within an hour she was using the mouse like a pro, with the sole hurdle of the left and right mouse buttons. I guess with an Apple mouse that would have been easier. Gamepads? Same thing. You can just get one and be comfortable with the thumbstick in no time. Heck, even taking non-gaming things, there's a reason why historically the crossbow was more popular than the much faster firing longbow: any peasant can point and click.
If you will, it's not entirely a matter of believing I'll fail, but a matter of what the heck would be my motivation to put some work in _that_. I can see how someone would be motivated to do that after a stroke, since you mention patients with nerve damage, because, simply put, they can't choose to "play" another RL. But in a game, between one where I have to spend months just learning to use the controls, and one where I can have fun within half an hour, I'll go for the latter every time.
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