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."
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.
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.
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.
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.