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 can't wait for an 'adult' game to kill someone with a feedback loop of excitement and stimulation. That would be awesome.
RTFA. This is not an invasive technology. Its a helmet.
You mad
Now when you say you cant get a game out of your mind, you'll be right!
Emotiv Systems plans to target the Chinese pigeon market first, as many of the birds have already had the necessary equipment jammed through their craniums.
Release titles include "GTA: Bread Crust", "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2007: Parked Lexus Alley", and of course the much anticipated "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Hideous Chinese Biolab Bay".
Read Pynchon.
... will this work through my tinfoil hat?
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Here is their homepage: http://www.emotiv.com/
Looks like they're looking for people to test their brain control devices on...
http://www.gumtree.com.au/sydney/07/8397907.html
Unexpect the expected!
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.
Where do I sign up??
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
With sufficiently precise brain wave monitoring it should be possible to detect very complex patterns. At the same time the user would 'learn' how to create certain patterns, just like how any person learns how to move their arms or blink. Eventually you could make your avatar run and jump without feeling a twitch in your legs - your brain knows what patterns are needed to make your avatar take actions.
I can imagine this being useful for other things than games in the long run. This, of course, would be the more obvious Neuromancer style future where your control over the computer is almost entirely brain based. Once again, with sufficient resolution in a device like this one you could probably type at the speed you can think. You would be able to give 'voice commands' faster than you can talk. Need to view another object on your screen? Just think about it.
The ramifications would be enormous. What if people could write a book in half the time simply because they were no longer constantly distracted by their own typing? Even further into the future when there is some kind of feedback device, maybe you would be able to 'feel' your way around data, rapidly moving through it at the speed of your thoughts. Perhaps you would ultimately be able to search faster and better than Google.
The "wow" factor for the use of this technology by healthy people to play video games can't be denied (if, in fact, the device works as it says it does). My huge question about this, though, is why if the technology is so good, it hasn't been implemented to help people with neurological abnormalities better control the world around them. I'm sure many a quadriplegic would be ecstatic about the opportunity to control their wheelchair or utilize a mechanical arm to help feed themselves using a helmet and the "power of thought." Instead, it seems like the first application being touted is for video game control? That doesn't make much sense to me - I would think the medical market would be where the money is at AND the population most likely to adopt such a new technology without it having to be 100% accurate all the time.
It makes me wonder if this is just a lot of hot air to get a company's name thrown around in places like Slashdot. Yay! Control video games with your brain! Then why is it researchers at the National Institutes of Health as recently as two years ago still couldn't get a similar technology to work with a level of accuracy greater than that of random chance just to tell whether a person was going to move their right or left arm before the motion actually took place? Oh, and those analyses were done with EEG, which involves the use of a skullcap with 30+ electrical leads stuck directly to a person's scalp with a special electro-conductive gel. I'm sure if that's required to make this "helmet" work, it probably won't go over too well since setting up a clinical EEG skullcap takes upwards of 10 minutes and can be rather painful, depending on how much hair a person has.
EEG is a reflection of aggregate neural activity and can be recorded quite easily at the skull...the system seems to work best with children and others open to believing in their capability
I guess you could say it works better with an "open mind."
Jokes aside, this seems like learning to control a body part. Children are constantly refining their internal models of motion as they grow and gain dexterity, so it makes sense that they would learn more quickly than an adult. People who suffer from nerve damage usually recover more quickly and more completely if they have self confidence. It's not mind-over-matter exactly, but those who believe they will fail likely will.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Excuse the troll-like subject title above, but if a neuro interface that could actually reflect precise movements and commands had been invented, the company would be running straight to the vastly more lucrative military market long before taking a look at home consoles.
The fact that its coming straight to home consoles suggests that hype and hope will be the products primary market drivers.
My two cents.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I made a "brainwave joystick" as part of my graduate research in neuro-engineering. http://www.picobay.com/projects/2006/05/controllin g-video-game-with-brain.html
This is not new technology... it's been around for about twenty years now, but about every year or so CNN reports on it like it was just invented yesterday. It does have a high "gee-whiz" factor, but the reality is that the error rate is very high. There are thousands of neuroscientists working on brain computer interfacing at any given moment. What makes you think the first breakthrough is going to be for gaming? A more noble cause is to allow the paralyzed to control wheelchairs with mere thought and that hasn't happened yet (even an error rate of 5% is too high). Systems that are a little more accurate involve implanting electrodes in the brain. Unfortunately, scar tissue slowly surrounds the electrodes and the signals become weaker and weaker. Eventually after about 1 or 2 years the electrodes have to be surgically removed and placed in another location (and the patient has to be re-trained). So despite what the latest "future show" on the Discovery Channel may say, we are still a loooong way off from driving our cars with brain waves.