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Brain Controlled Virtual World for the Disabled
Galactic_grub writes "New Scientist Tech has a story about a virtual world that paralyzed patients can explore using their thoughts. The set-up connects a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) to virtual reality so that a person can 'walk' through it, simply by thinking of moving their legs or their left or right hand. Electrodes are attached to their scalp and electroencephalogram (EEG) readings are used to navigate, or control an avatar. The story includes a video of the experiment."
Yes, commercialize the research please..
We've been hearing about this technology for years now.
Get the invention out of the lab and into the hands of people who need it.
There's disable people out there living terribly poor quality lives.. they could be playing WoW.
How we know is more important than what we know.
My wife spent a while caring for paraplegics and helping them to adjust. Most of these were young males hurt in mining accidents. Being able to have fantasies about walking is probably low on their agenda and probably serves little useful purpose. Being able to have realistic sex play is probably far more desirable and beneficial to the their health and wellbeing.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Hmm. This reminds me of Mr. Ng from Snow Crash. Could be interesting.
I'm sure that this could somehow be adapted for physical therapy purposes. It's a start in the right direction, anyhow.
The idea is that they'll eventually be able to control their wheelchairs and move around in the world, rather than have the world move around them.
This thing is going to become the norm before too long. Personally, I'm looking forward to it. Thought controlled interfaces open up countless opportunities for computing.
Gamertag: WyleType
This is going to be good for some people, but what happens when these people take of the electrodes and discover they still can't walk. I would think it would make them worse.
However, this is a step in the right direction. If we can read and interpret instructions through EEG good enough to control an avatar, how far away can we be from using these same thoughts to control robotic limbs?
Imagine if someone made a virtual reality sims off that kind of a game engine? People would really starve themselves.
Yeah, this seems all kewl and shit now, but just wait until they get put into these pepperpot things with plungers on the end, we'll be in for it then! "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
(@ T- 26 seconds)
"How are you? Chew on my milk duds."
Nevertheless, fantastic use of technology. I can't wait to see where they go with this.
Inserting [insert witty signature here] here does not constitute a witty signature.
This reminds me of a gaming console that Atari worked on in the mid-1980s called the Atari Mindlink, very similar concept except it used infrared sensors to measure the movement of the muscles in your head.
0 0/mindlink.html
http://www.atarimuseum.com/videogames/consoles/26
I definitely agree with one of the previous posters that, I am not sure how much good a virtual world "game" would do for paralyzed individuals. I do think though that it could serve as a novel source of entertainment for them which could lift their spirits some. I can imagine that, myself, if I were ever in that kind of situation, the inability to play games would incredibly depress me since I get a great deal of enjoyment from them, so this virtual world would sound pretty fun, especially if it could be implemented as a game. I mean, I am certain there must be some developer out there who would jump at the chance to make a game for paralyzed individuals utilizing this interface.
Future indie game developer of America (and possibly Canada)
I've got my imagination... don't we all? Makes a pretty good "virtual" world for me when needed.
No... didn't RTFA.
You sir, need help.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Invest in a holodiction support clinic.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
And fucktards like you need to slit your fucking wrists.
I apologize for even making this comment but to even come up with such garbage, you have to expect some sort of response like this.
Actually, it makes me wonder. Bear in mind that I'm taking wild guesses here, though.
i ld kind.
For a start there was this other piece of research some time ago about how playing games even makes people somewhat forget about pain. As in, the physical pain kind. I don't know, it sounds fairly useful to me.
Second, for the kind of people who'd _need_ a brain interface, I'm guessing they can't use their hands either. Maybe it's ADHD speaking, but it sounds completely fucking boring. You can't even read a book, or change TV channels or call a friend. You can't even drive a wheelchair to talk to the neighbour, so basically you don't even have any kind of social life, not even the posting-to-slashdot or pretending-to-be-the-populer-jock-warrior-in-a-gu
Basically it sounds to me like it's a hell of a lot worse than whether you have sex or not. You're seven levels deeper in hell than that. You don't even have the pre-requisites to even think of sex, like being able to actually have a social life of any kind and meet someone who'd be even remotely interested in you.
Plus, while sex is nice, it's... what? Maybe you can make a whole hour out of it, foreplay included. If they had hands for foreplay anyway. That still leaves 15 hours awake of not being able to do anything. So from a simple maths point of view, between (A) being able to do _something_ the whole day, and (B) having sex once a day followed by 15 hours of watching the walls... I dunno, the former doesn't seem that horrible an alternative.
Plus, how would you realistically solve their sex problem anyway? Pay a small army of prostitutes? Because if all someone can do is lay in bed, they're not going to be that attractive to many women anyway, and they won't have the opportunity to meet many women anyway. At least if they can do something online, they might have some small chance of actually talking to one. Or if all else fails, it gives them something to do instead of spending 16 hours a day fantasizing about sex.
Basically, "yeah, but they'd need sex more" seems to be akin to giving a chocolate bar once a week to starving kids in Africa. Sure, chocolate is nice, but I'm guessing they'd still be happier with having bread and clean water 3 times a day instead. The next step would be maybe some vegetables too. And so on. There's a long list of stuff they need more than chocolate. Necessities before luxuries, and all that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Its a bit after 2001, but hey, we could still have a Jobe Smith on our hands. ;) ...my birth cry will be the sound of every phone on this planet ringing in unison!
Narean