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OCZ Prepares Neural Impulse Actuator for Shipping
An anonymous reader writes "Technology review site Overclock3D has received word that OCZ Technology is putting their neural impulse actuator (NIA) into mass production for shipping next week. The device, aimed at gamers, works by reading biopotentials. 'These include activities of the brain, the autonomous nervous system and muscles — all of which are captured using embrace sensors located on the NIA's headband, amplified and sent to the PC via USB 2.0.' Users of the NIA will be able to control their in-game movements using only the power of mind. The device is priced at around $600USD"
Insert obvious joke about Blue-Screen of Death here.
In Crysis, for example, there is so much input/output between switching weapons, suit settings, reload, not to metion run-of-the-mill aiming and movement. There's just no way without even a minor component like some sort of eye motion scan.
If it works well, I'll be the first to happily call myself an unbelieving douche and will post naked pictures of me playing games with it. Not that anyone wants to see that. I'm just saying.
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
Not necessarily. There have been devices like this for paralyzed people for years. The big innovation would be making it small and cheap enough to sell, which they say they have done.
A more detailed review might help.
Not a sentence!
If I didn't have to think in Russian.
The online porn experience would be greatly simplified.
We figured out a long time ago that it's easier to elect seven judges than to elect 132 legislators.
The article says the device will cost an estimated $300, not $600.
While many professional gamers spend many hours every day for several years training these reflexes
but that makes even me chuckle.
No No No.... "reaction times can be cut by anything up to 60%" I don't care about reaction times. I care about my wrists. Frag gaming, just let me move my mouse for more than an hour without painful twinges and numbness.
Also, these idiots are missing a revolution here. I believe that something like this device coupled with HUD glasses will be a revolution as large as the mouse and GUI were back in the day.
Right now I am coupled to my computer. It got better when I got a laptop. Now my computer comes with me. Still though, I have to take it out, sit down, and while I'm using my computer I'm stuck staring at a screen and using a keyboard/mouse. The "Mobile" in mobile computing only counts when you're not using your computer.
Imagine if you didn't even have to take out your computer.
Leave your computer in your bookbag or pocket. Put on your display glasses so you can see your "screen" hovering in your view. Use a headband (perhaps hidden in your hat) to control the interface (and perhaps one day type). Use speech recognition to type and control.
No more hands. No more being chained to your computer. This frees us as much as the mouse/gui freed us, and will pave the way to opportunities I can't even imagine....
And these idiots are touting it as a gaming gimmick. Not even one mention of UI possibilities. Sigh.
I want my Shadowrun Comlink. The future is staring at us and people aren't even paying attention.
-Tony
My friend did his thesis on using (basically) this system to help invalids participate in the world, about 10 years ago. According to him, at first everyone can raise or lower all their brain waves at once, and within a month can raise or lower a specific wave. At first for it to be accurate, you need to have the system read muscle movement for facial tics, but gradually you can phase out this input as the patient becomes more adept at controlling his mental state. The hardest part of writing his thesis was getting time with the equipment.
Forget about games, this being mass-produced is a great step towards turning the handicapped into the handicapable .
Also, look for the New Agers gobbling this stuff up for their meditation ceremonies.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
I'm not disabled myself
but the first thing that comes to mind with one of these things
is if it could be used to control motorized missing limbs?
wikipedia mentions neural interfaces that connect directly to the brain http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroprosthetics
if you could carry a laptop around with one of these little boxes
it might be a bit more convenient (and perhaps safer) that having direct brain implants
with enough time and miniaturization you might even be able to get feedback
not to mention the 6 million dollar coolness factor (plus tax)
...it's real, and it's a very old idea. Atari created a very similar device 25 years ago. It was crude by today's standards (you very nearly had to move your eyebrows for it to register movement) but it did work. Atari had working prototypes at a CES in the early 1980s--people could play pong and breakout with the "mindlink". It was a crude form of the very same technology used here, though it was much less sensitive and required a bit of muscle movement for it to pick up neural impulses. The technology was developed for myoelectric prosthetic limbs and has matured greatly since those days.
Atari's MindLink controller was never released to production though...testers often experienced tension headaches after using the device for extended sessions and it was not very precise. Beyond pong and breakout and other simple games it was not very effective because users had trouble coping with more than simple linear control. Also, furhter refinement of the product was abandoned as this was around the time of the Tramiel takeover (and Tramiel was known not to ever be enthusiastic about the potential of home video game consoles vs. low cost home computers) and the big console industry shakeout made for a lot of vapourware from all industry players.
Certainly with increased processing power and better sensor technology in the past 25 years there could be much more potential in such a device, especially for those who have physical disabilities that prevent them from effectively using keyboards and mice. This isn't April fools or even a new idea, and it employs passive sensors (they do not transmit neural impulses--only detect the ones you generate) so a "blue screen of death" won't really kill you, and if you get a good fragging it won't fry your brain (the feedback is only visual--what is on the screen).
Bioptentials is not a word. There are plenty of words they could have used, there was no need to make one up.
I actually saw something like this at CES '07. It was able to tell the difference between "relax" and "concentrate", for instance. They had it hooked up as a Half-Life 2 modification. If you concentrated, the things under the cursor would start to explode. Relax, and they would start floating around your head. It was pretty cool to watch, but it's not something that would be useful for playing most fast-paced games.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Looks like they may be beating http://www.emotiv.com/ 's "EPOC Neuroheadset" to market by several months. The claim for the EPOC was that it would be available for the holidays at the end of 2008. Interesting that they are also planning to sell for the same $300 price as this OCZ one.
If it has API it will rock as a secondary input system to mouse. You will be able to scroll through text/code just by looking, switch windows, copy paste - it has an enormous potential. Again, if it can be trained to work with 99.9% precision like a mouse.
When you're playing Battlefield 1942 and you see a tank shell coming for your face? I find it very hard to believe this kind of technology will be able to interpret the "OH SHIT" reflex accurately...
Brain interfaced targetting support? better UVA flight manuvers? Attack helicopters needing only one person because the pilot can now control the gun with his mind? If the military thought using xbox 360 controls was innovative... wait until we present these things to the brass!
Reports suggest that some side effects due to haphazard "electrical signals" result in the user asking mindbogglingly stupid questions.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I hope to see people buying these and writing Linux hacks to get it working on Linux as soon as it goes on sale... maybe we can have a kernel driver by the 2.6.30 release?
I then hope to see people writing FOSS APIs that can be used in non-gaming applications (word processor, anyone? Lots of embedded possibilities... imagine using this as a UI for graphics applications... whether for paint or CAD/CAM apps)
Tech Public Policy stuff
You are welcome on my lawn.
How can the product be an actuator, and consist of sensors? Aren't those like ... opposites? Am I just being old-fashioned in thinking of the device as a sensor, used by the computer, to detect brain activity? Is a joystick also an actuator?
main(O){10<putchar(4^--O?77-(15&5128 >>4*O):10)&&main(2+O);}
From TFA... "the OCZ neural impulse actuator doesn't use electrode cream, which is a good thing because the last thing gamers would want to do is lube up before playing their favorite game."
They clearly haven't tested it with this game yet...Will they put the specifications out under a free unencumbered licence?
... WOW.
... WOW.
It is real and the technology exists. I have had past PERSONAL experience with computer control via neural feedback.
--side story to explain: I have ADD and aspergers. When I was about 8 (I think) I saw for some time a particular specialist and one of the activities I did was to be hooked up (with electrodes on my head) to a computer and navigate a 2D map with a little dot.
Not quite the level of control that you'd need however I can tell you with practice it gets easier.
This is amazing stuff. I'm so getting one.
'Tis a shame some won't be able to play.
Of course its not useful yet. Most of what happens in fast paced games does not go through your conscious mind. Most fast past gaming skills are simple muscle memory and hand eye coordination. The best gamers are on top of their game as they relax and stop thinking about anything. The less you engage your mind the better you do.
Utter bullshit. Yes, hand-eye coordination is very important. But more so is tactical and strategic reasoning. Even in fast paced games. This process of situational analysis is certainly done automatically (you can't really help it -- engaging a game is almost by definition an exercise in situational awareness), and it may or may not be "voiced". But it is not unconscious. It is not mere muscle memory.
Funnily enough, if this technology develops to the point where it can translate a complex plan into the proper sequence of game moves, it will ultimately turn game playing into mathematics (as an activity as practiced by mathematicians). You wouldn't have to do anything but sit in front of a computer quietly, and concentrating on the problem at hand. A day where a complex plan can be translated directly will never come. But even this technology is capable of it if introduced to a child at an early enough age. The child would develop "control sequences" for computer actions we could probably never experience.
After all, I am strangely colored.
You know, almost 17 hours before this was posted, my wife's uncle had a stroke. Should he survive he likely will never talk again and his motor skills will be poor enough that typing will be labor intensive for him. All I can think is WOW, this is only $300, and would have been 10 grand just 5 years ago.
I'll be buying one, but not for games. Even if Ken doesn't make it, I think there is promise in a software app to use this for limited communication (teach limited words: yes, no, hurt, cold, hot, help, hungry, thank you, love you, etc.; then grow into sentence building, ala Hawking's setup).
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump