Slashdot Mirror
Brain Control Headset for Gamers
gbjbaanb writes "Gamers will soon be able to interact with the virtual world using their thoughts and emotions alone.
Headsets which read neural activity are not new, but Ms Le [president of US/Australian firm Emotiv] said the Epoc was the first consumer device that can be used for gaming. 'This is the first headset that doesn't require a large net of electrodes, or a technician to calibrate or operate it and does require gel on the scalp,' she said. 'It also doesn't cost tens of thousands of dollars.'" Wait until the government can get warrantless wiretaps on the logs of those things.
I can't wait to see what some hardware hackers can do with this and a Lego Mindstorms NXT robot!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I'm personally glad to read this, as Gamera has been far too much of a free spirit wrecking havoc with his fire breath. This new era of brain control for Gamera should focus his energies far better to protect the cities of Japan.
-a.e.mossberg
Another new word of the 21st century:
brain sprain
Usage: "I sprained my brain playing HalfLife all through the weekend".
sigs are hazardous to your health
When I first read that headline, I read it as a headset that enables one to control the mind, vs. using the mind to control something. Perhaps that's because I'm listening to the 7th Son trilogy over at podiobooks.com...
Probably could help them quiet a bit with things.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
I remember seeing these demonstrated at my college a few months back. At the time we could use them to point, and type things; but they were very slow and somewhat inaccurate.
At the time they did not have a "Backspace" method, so when you typed "O" instead of "P" you would still have to use the keyboard to delete it.
Found a YouTube video of it, but I think this one from a different company.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhR076duc8M
Look closer at the text. It looks like the device reads *facial expressions* through pointed sensors touching the skin. Yay. That sounds comfortable.
Did it say it required gel or did not. I have had multiple EEG's and the gel is not fun. It is like gel with sand in it. "This is the first headset that doesn't require a large net of electrodes, or a technician to calibrate or operate it and does require gel on the scalp," she said. "It also doesn't cost tens of thousands of dollars."
Linux is like a teepee. It has no windows, no gates, and there's an Apache inside.
But does it come with a tinfoil hat.
Now when you die alone in your studio apartment the decomposing of your brain will be interpreted as commands, further delaying the chance that someone will alert the police that something is wrong.
This is definately a technology i'm interested in, it will be awesome for game controlling and possibly helpful for the disabled. However, I think there are some concerns which need to addressed in its application.
For example, the Half-Life 2 games send an enormous ammount of information to Valve regarding player performance and interaction.
Do you really want your emotional reactions broadcast over the internet? Aren't these pitfalls and questions inevitable with this technology?
I've been seeing these claims for years, but this technology is not really based on thought. It's just one form of bio-feedback. It is an example of control without conventional physical contact, but it does not process structured thought. The user typically has to train themselves to control the feedback mechanism. This is NOT reeading thoughts and taking some action. It is using thoughts to modulate some physical process. In that sense, it's not much different than training your fingers to operate a game controller.
Gamera, Gamera!
Gamera is really neat!
He is filled with turtle meat!
We all love you Gamera!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Soon all effort will be removed from gaming what-so-ever. Think of all the precious calories we can save playing World of Warcraft with our minds! Wonder if the twitch reaction timing will mean I can finally beat a Warlock 1v1.
From the article: "It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer," said Tan Le, president of US/Australian firm Emotiv."
:)
So instead of trying to pick up cordless phone signals and listening to conversations, they can instead sniff into the wireless signal and pick up thoughts!
I just can't wait to see the blog articles from this!
That picture is awesome. I can't wait for the future.
it says in the article "does require gel" but it's listed with things it no longer requires im wondering if that was a typo or not. Im interested to see how this works out. I wonder if someone would be able to hack either the device itself or whatever console they're gaming on and read their thoughts?
"Wait until the government can get warrantless wiretaps on the logs of those things."
Must every paragraph be twisted and poked until it makes some political comment. I don't know about the rest of you but I find it very annoying. Politics is only a small section that effect peoples lives. Things do happen without a political motive or really needs a political comantary. I think we as a people are getting obsessive over politics, everything needs a deep meaning. It doesn't enjoy life a bit.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Will I just be able to think "boom headshot" and become 'l33t' at CS?
Did anyone else mis-read that headline as "Birth Control for gamers" or is it just me?
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
That is amazing. I didn't think it was possible to control a character on screen with just thoughts of tits and anime.
The government doesn't need "to get" warrantless wiretaps. They need to GET a warrant. That's the whole point of warrantless surveillance. You don't need to GET anything. You just do it without any oversight. No one watches the watchers. If the think you should be monitored for any reason whatsoever they will do so. Our political leaders have let us down, and that's putting it mildly.
If you think thinking in Russian will keep the Government from spying on your thoughts, you are wrong. The US government has plenty of people who know Russian left over from the Cold War. Based on the current state of US intelligence, I think you are better off thinking in Farsi.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
You think : Wow! This is amazing for gamers! This will help the disabled! This is a new breakthrough in technology! It would bring about a whole new era of gaming. I think : Guess what the FBI will use next?
You're trying to say you've been going all this time without one? I think I'd have gotten bored pretty quick of all this internet stuff without it. No workstation is complete without a cockpit simulator!
which is totally what she said
For this to work, you must be a gamer *and* you must have a brain.
OK.
Ed
Without your space helmet, Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult.
If this is reading your genuine emotions and transferring them to your ingame avatar you will be unable to lie effectively to your fellow players.
Just imagine it, blue teammate 3 gets horribly slaughtered, you type "sorry mate, didn't know they had set up an ambush there" but at the same time the headset has your avatar bent over double laughing himself silly... team games will never be the same again.
The original article does not mention that this device is gender specific. In fact, it only shows the version for women.
The version for men has two similar but distinct components, taking in account the known anatomic specificities of male brains: men have two separate brains, a northern and a southern one.
No man has sufficient blood to feed both brains, so the basic package includes one sensor only. (it is the south-brain-version. Will do for most gamers and internet surfers).
Presented In BC [Brain Control] (Where Available)
Uncle Sugar couldn't give a shit what's going on in your brain. Warrantless wiretaps are for assholes providing direct aid and comfort to the enemy, like this cunt.
You mean nothing to Uncle Sugar. So get over yourself and go back to pleasuring yourself with that new jumbo butt-plug that arrived today from chunksingravy.com.
I misread the summary title as Birth Control Headset for gamers and thought "Man, am I playing the wrong games"
Imagine a world 30 years from now where robots running on ____ fuel do all of the worlds manual labor. Meanwhile, there are gigantic slums of the poor dying off due to starvation because they have no jobs because the robots can do it for less. Governments won't care because the transfer of power from democratic governments will move to our increasingly large corporations - think feudal. The ones with the jobs are the robot programmers, makers, and all other job sectors still left after such a shift from labor to services is complete. It's these people (many of us would be included in this technological future, of course) that still hate their jobs and go home and hook up to a virtual reality machine to, not be happy, but merely relieve the stress of work.
We don't need a hostile AI takeover to enslave us in the Matrix; we have been enslaving ourselves in the Matrix ever since the industrial revolution. Are we happier? No. Why are we doing it? Evolution. Machines are simply the next evolution after Man.
for sharing.
With this, hopefully no one would slip and throw their controller into the TV. It would be a tad bit uncomfortable with it being strapped to their head.
I'm a bit surprised they don't offer the option of a head-mounted display. They've already got the head-tracking, but that kinda sucks if your display doesn't move with you.
With all this VR stuff, I hate to rain on the parade, but as we get closer and closer to reality, what exactly is the advantage? At what point do people go outside and say, hey, this actual reality thing has better resolution! I understand that you can change or eliminate the rules in VR. But, if the rules are invented by people (you know, those things that go to war incessantly), then the rules are probably going to be worse and MORE annoying. So, I think I will stick with actual reality. Just a thought.
No one brought up the inevitable hack to enable "no-hands" surfing for pr0n.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
I saw one at CompUSA back in '98-99 and played with the skiing game. It was able to steer correctly about 75% of the time; not bad since I just walked up and plopped my finger on the little sensor.
Go to http:\\other90.com for an unobtrusive "neural" interface. It's really a biometric sensor that's able to get some very crude up/down/left/right input. Of course, their website is straight out of 1998 and it doesn't look like they have made any significant effort to rewrite their software for 2k, let alone XP.
Given that it never seemed to make any inroads at any time, I sometimes wonder if the system would only work for a minority of people. It seems like even the crude data input it had would be excellent to integrate into artificial limbs.
I've been on slashdot so long I'm starting to get out of touch with the cool stuff if it ain't on slashdot.
My left hand is retarded, always fat-fingering the 'a' and 's' keys while typing on home row. It's not much better when gaming with WASD. I'd snap one of these bad boys up if it it's better than my left hand mashing the WASD keys.
interact with the virtual world using their thoughts
I'm in management, you insensitive clod!
I've bbbeeen bbbeeeta tesstingg the rumbbbllle pppaack for the llaaast tttwwoo dddayys.
Seppuku: Your solution to my problems!
Are you coming on to me?
When I read the title I immediately started hoping they had invented a headset that would allow me to control other peoples' brains. This isn't nearly as cool.
Hikery.net - The best hiking site ever. Made by yours truly.
The words were a little misleading at one point. Do you need gel on your scalp to play it?
Videos of the general public giving the headset a go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0
The brain is designed to control the body. Our hands are the most useful part of it, with reason.
...we could call it a POWER GLOVE! Maybe nintendo can use it for the next console.
The next step will have to be some sort of glove
But seriously, it'll have to be that. The big problem is making sure it understands our intentions enough to be useful. Imagine a pianist that can airplay wearing a glove that understand which key he meant to hit (How? Good luck with that...). THAT is the next step and it's hard as hell.
Until then, all we can do is make more ergonomic pads, mice (wiimote is a 3D mouse, fun but doesn't provide more efficient control) and keyboards.
If this catches on, the official hardcore-gamer stereotype will have to change. No longer will the Cheeto's-encrusted Inuyasha t-shirt be their emblem. You will know them by the facial expressions they have carefully trained over the years: cartoonishly exaggerated smiles, frowns, and raised eyebrows with statue-still eyes. Mechanically timed for just as long as it takes to register the signal on World of Warcraft III, and then back to nothing. Their parents will think they're on drugs, and society will think they're serial killers; indeed with clown makeup they'd probably look a lot like John Wayne Gacy.
Am I kidding? I'm not even sure; I do know I'm not playing any such game for any long period.
...and only go into "work" when we want to?
The Future is already here, just unevenly distributed... THE ROBOTIC WAGELESS ECONOMY NOW! http://RoboEco.com/slash
if this works even a little- combined with voice control it would be a godsend.
I deal with pain-3 (on a 1-10 scale) all the time now. Mousing is much worse than typing tho. Partially carpal, partially chemo, partially diabetes. The laser off the eyes devices would also very helpful for the total package. And foot pedals.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
*squirt*
I guess I am! Well, did.
There's no way I'm putting a Wi-Fi device on my head. Who knows what all that radiation can do so closely to your head? I don't even use cell phones anymore, because the studies done on radiation are no where near conclusive that it's safe.
Why couldn't they go with an IR interface instead?
I know, I know, lots of nerds think it's safe enough... but until there's more concrete studies showing that this isn't a health hazard (or discredit the studies that show it is hazardous), I don't think it is worth taking the risk with my health (or anyone else).
There have been way too many cases where we have seen things approved by authorities as "safe" (or safe enough), but were later withdrawn because they caused a lot of lives to be lost. More scrutiny about health hazards is needed.
Having to move my thumbs was too exhausting.
Now, if they could just do something about that stair climb out of my mom's basement.
Have gnu, will travel.
"Wait until the government can get warrantless wiretaps on the logs of those things."
Yeah, it'd go something like this:
*left*
*left*
*up*
*right*
*down*
*down*
*up*
"Oh my lord, Johnson, he must be planning an attack! Scramble some F-16s and get a trace on the IP address of that Nintendo -- we've got to stop this guy before he hurts someone!"
--or--
*left*
*left*
*up*
*right*
*down*
*down*
*up*
"Hmmm... I think he's trying to get the 'Balls of Steel' cheat to activate. That's an arresting, Johnson, send the local authorities over his way. Kids these days think they can cheat their way through pinball. Disgusting."
Natalie Wood would be happy.
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
In other words, 90% of female WoW toons will be pitching a tent every 7 seconds?
I seem to recall Atari dabbling with this kind of brain interface junk back in the days of the 2600. I can't recall the name or if it ever made it past the mock-up stage, but if it had been released, it'd probably have gone the way of the U-Force.
Most likely though, this thing will probably fail just as miserably as the Virtual Boy. People simply don't like uncomfortable, ugly-looking gadgets attached to their heads. (Especially stuff requiring frequent, repetative head movement.)
On the other hand, fans of the movie, "Strange Days" will probably eat it up.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Hacking Hawking. Or, Hawking Hawking... and grafting him onto Slashdot... Might improve the moderation system, or...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Modded +ln(e^1) Funny.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
I still want the USB version.. direct link to my brain.
I just did a final project for a neurotech seminar course on exactly what EEGs (electroencephalograms, or signals picked up using electrodes on the scalp) are capable of doing, and at the end of it I compared my results to the claims for this product. Basically, unless they've done some seriously groundbreaking research, many of their claims are complete bullshit.
An EEG signal, in the best possible conditions (i.e. 15 minutes of set-up with a technician, weeks of training, a much larger number of electrodes than could fit on their headset, application of sticky gel to help the connection, etc.) is capable of decent two-dimensional control (see Wolpaw and McFarland, 2004), with some clever computing. Not precise enough to power anything more than some pretty boring games, but decent. There's just no freakin' way, though, that they have reliable motion on six different axes simultaneously with a 16-electrode, one-size-fits-all headset.
Even single-dimensional control, that is, moving a single variable up and down (usually by controlling alpha waves), requires training, is not all that precise, and is just a form of biofeedback, as a previous poster mentioned. That's been done plenty of times, like in the "BrainBall" game previously covered by slashdot. http://slashdot.org/articles/00/02/18/1041219.shtml/
This isn't counting muscle movement, though; movements of the scalp and face muscles produce huge electrical potentials, and so there's plenty of potential for control there. If the device is cheap enough, this might be fun to play with, but I still think they're overselling it - these muscle motion detections are probably the only things powering huge portions of their software.
To back all this up, the little promotional material they've released doesn't show convincing control at all. They used to have a video up of a dude pretending to move rocks with the headset (can't seem to find it now), which was really terribly-disguised showmanship. The man was accomplishing the task, but only because there was no way for him to fail, and there didn't seem to be any correlation between his movements and the single-dimensional (forward-only) movement that happened on the screen.
So, again, this could be a worthwhile product, but Emotiv has made some impossible claims, and has lots of very flashy-looking images but no convincing data. I would be careful about investing in it.
Who cares about the hookup to your face -- you type much, much more explicitly informative things every day, and then send it over the tubes. Granted, most of the emotions are of the sophomoric variety, but people have been leaking their emotional state over IM for the last few decades, and with some fairly trivial text processing you could discover it. (Start with just searching for smilies and emotional words, then level up to training Bayes-based classifiers -- if it works for telling what mails are spam, I bet it will tell you which Livejournals are emo.)
Stub implementation:
LiveJournal#isEmo() { return true;}
See, 99% accurate with a single line of code.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
When zoning in to the community portal players should no longer experience uncontrolled explosive diarrhea. A small number of players were becoming comatose during the sleeper encounter, this bug should be fixed.
Thanks to eating disorders most chicks are reasonably good looking these days.
These are gamers we're talking about. A greasy film of Cheetos grease should be sufficient.
'cause you sure aren't getting laid wearin' that!
If this somehow gets tied in with a Google Brain Implant, and someone decided to scam/hack players..... total Epicness would ensue!
::cough-noob-cough:: would be stupid enough to fall for it. Instead of scamming an account, you are effectively scamming their brain. Imagine the possibilities! :)
:(
Imagine that some player developed a scam similar to the Steam scam (The "Send me your user/pass and I'll unlock all the games for you" scam) and mentally posted a link online. All you would have to do is mentally post a message online and wait for some poor sap to Google/stumble across it. I'm sure that someone
Now if only someone would get brain implant technology to that point....
"D00d, I juzt pwned yur brainz. LOL kthnxbai."
Sorry if my thoughts are incoherent - I'm hungry.