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NIA Brain-Computer Interface, Mind-Control Gaming
MojoKid writes "Sunnyvale-based manufacturer OCZ Technology has laid claim to being the first to bring a 'brain-computer' interface to the retail market and they have aimed it squarely at the gamer. The device is called the NIA, which is an acronym that stands for
Neural Impulse Actuator. Instead of buttons, sticks, gyroscopes or motion sensors, it reads the body's natural bio-signals and translates them into commands that can be used to control PC games. This evaluation of the NIA shows the product actually works as advertised,
with a little practice. It can, in some cases, offer reaction times superior to
standard controllers, based on faster trigger response time, and the difference
is quite noticeable and immediate."
I was using an NIA interface so I beat you all :o
No, but I did throw granola at a deaf person once
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/27/2343259
tm
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That's not a nervous tick... It's RSI of the face muscles.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
If this does not get Nukem if ever back on release tracks, nothing does...
There was something just like this that I used in the West Edmonton Mall about four years ago. It was being devoloped as a gaming system and as something for disabled people. I am not sure what happened to it. All of a sudden everything about it was gone online and I never heard another thing about it. I think it may have been shut down by the government.
Please visit http://www.mederbil.com/ i7, GTX 275, 4 1TB Caviar Green in RAID 0+1 array, EVGA X58 3X SLI Board, Silver
And I fail, by duping the links in my own dupe report... its still been covered before though.
I think it's use must call Alzheimer's, and all the editors have a review unit it would seem.
Yes, by now any semi regular reader knows that the NIA can be faster, but it takes tons of training and you can't just magically think "shoot that guy" and have the device point a gun at someone and shoot. This is just another review that got its hands on some buzz hardware and said the same things the other sites are saying.
You must think in Russian. You cannot think in English and then transpose.
Wow! With the recent report about the brain making decisions up to seven seconds before you know it, this means you can frag your opponents before they even show up.
"However, Alpha and Beta control still alluded us."
"We eventually learned how to separate Beta 2 from Beta 3 although Beta 4 still alludes us."
Both quotes from page 5 of the TFA.
I'm going to allude to how English spelling and grammar eludes the author.
When this technology becomes readily available will it cause an unfair balance in online gaming? I mean look at the people who use multi-button mice to program in combos or weapons or whatever they need, or people who use keyboard short cuts; both of these are banned in some tourneys. I just think its something interesting to consider.
In games like Team Fortress 2, you can spray an image on an in-game wall. In theory, if you spray a distracting image (not necessarily pornographic,) you could seriously throw off this controller.
Subliminal images might be fun also...
Stealing their apostrophes isn't going to help any!
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
This device appears to be measuring electical potentials generated by muscle groups in the face firing. I would think that a "brain interface" (or mind-machine interface or direct neural interface or brain-computer interface) at the very least should be driven directly by cortical neuronal activity (i.e. EEG, MEG), not the end muscle group.
This seems like more of a gamer's application of electromyography
It is an interesting concept and if I have a mind controlled interface that links to a radio controlled helicopter then I could be search for weapons and none would be found, however I would still be able to call a helicopter strike on my assailant. Also, if I create a game program server and use the input from a radio controlled robot war machine and use that to create in world bot positions, then use the decisions of the players to wage war on anybody I choose without any effort or skill on my part.
Someone around here's gone long on OCZ stock.
I think they keep putting it on slashdot each time OCZ changes the expected shipping date. I ordered one of these a month ago expecting shipment on 7/1, but the shipping ETA keeps changing (looks like 8/1/08 now). who knows, maybe they'll find a cure for my uncle's ALS before we actually get to try this on him... this thing costs about 1/100 of the price of the eye-ball tracking system, and i bet it will be much, much faster for simple mouse control.
I thought of this idea back in the early 90s, unfortunately the tech was not available then. Good to see someone has made it now, even though it is just a rip off of an old idea of mine
I want this damn thing but for the price it's still out of my reach as a toy I don't know if I'll really have fun with. It's just so cool, and I like OCZ, but it might be better after some revisions. Software is important, but the hardware is bound to improve.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
I've been casually studying brainwaves and generally how the brain works for a couple of years. To see a device like this, that reads raw input regarding voltages/signal from the brain seems like something that will, as a lot of technologies in the past, only be launched as a video-gaming device.
From there, and as the technology matures, we can probably expect a LOT more direct brain -> computer functionality (think "Strange Days" movie as an extreme, although that was based around an OUTPUT to the brain).. Remember that Star Trek episode where they had that game that you hooked up to the brain and you had to maneuver the flying discs into the hole (I might not be remembering it correctly)?
Hopefully the NIA will be very closely monitored/tested as this type of technology gets more popular. Think about the people who modify their raw brain activity to calibrate these things - will it effect how they think when they're NOT using it?
In closing, the last thing we need is a bunch of SUV swerving dorks on the road with one of these things strapped on, trying to call their husbands/wives via the "Mind recognition dialing" feature.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Resistance is futile
Maybe this brain scan thing is picking up echos and posting them to /.
Like in that Library episode of Dr. Who. You think CmdrTaco is already dead?
in order to do the double jump and head shot combo: close your right eye while your left blink rapidly 30x while tilt your head 30 degrees to the left and smell burnt toast.
if you die in game, you die in real life!
Hey, when it comes to a brain/computer interface, the more the merrier. I'd like to see a story about this every day if need be, to get these products on the market, and not just from OCD (sorry, "OCZ").
Man, when these things hit the market I got plans for them. If I can map one of them to control the virtual instruments in my digital audio workstation, I will be happening. Seriously, one of the severe shortcomings of the current MIDI controllers is that I just can't control enough parameters with just two hands and two feet. Lordy, if I could control the cutoff frequency of a filter or tempo or (heavens!) pitch, my wife could brick up the door to my little home studio and I'd die happy.
Oh yeah, I'd like to play Team Fortress 2 with my brain, too.
You are welcome on my lawn.
i think vision recognition and hand tracking have the most potential for musical control. try hooking up HandVu or CamSpace to Max/MSP for example.
Me: *Playing Devil May Cry 8*
Trish: *Appears as an enemy boss clad in a hot bikini*
Me: *Shouts at the TV* NO! NO! DANTE! NO! GODDAMIT! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO SHOOT YOUR GUN -- NOT FAP!!!
Where do you stick the CD to load the drivers into your brain for this hardware?
Have gnu, will travel.
I'll wait for the EPOC. It looks like it will be more useful.
This product has been out for a while now, but is quite hard to get a hold of. I'm trying to get one shipped to Japan as soon as possible, but everywhere is always out of stock, and alot of places don't ship outside the US.
How are other's experiences on purchasing this, if you have?
Playing video games has always been a favorite pass-time of mine. But playing any kind of action game where you just sit there and think of what you want to do next??? I don't know. Don't you think that most people would prefer to play games that are more life-like, where you are actually doing something with your body like Guitar Hero or the plethora of games available for the wii? How much bragging rights do you actually deserve for being able to boast that "My brain is faster than yours"? Now maybe if a device like this offered something new in video game experience... like instead of a 'force-feedback' feature with a quivering controller... you get true bio-feedback... visions, emotions, twitching limbs... Now that's couch potato extreme!
Hold on, I forgot to put in the crystals!
How am I supposed to use this to order a dumb, mindless population into marching into my factories for Cyber-conversio... UPGRADING?
So wouldn't laughing, talking, yawning, sneezing, etc..., throw you off, hypothetically? I didn't read about any problems like that in the article linked. Also, might a headache impede the device?
more likely the company keeps paying for placement.
Twikee: Bidee-biddee-biddeee-biddee bee--- That feels GOOD, BUCK!
BR: Twikee... ah, a little to the left... to the right, yess, that's it...
Twikee: Geez, BUCK. You been watching that ancient show "Office Space"?
BR: Shhhh...
Twikee: You wish is MY COMMAND, BUCK...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
So, now you can brook this up to your hain, vurn up the tolume, and have you Sansui Technics and Pioneer bramplifying the Ain with all scorts of sopes... A truest Stereophile in the truest sense of the word... ummm, signal...
Now, Acid House can lead to a cerebral Acid Bath, and new commercials saying, "This is your ain on bracid..."
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Makes me think of neural neutralizers, mind reapers and such from Whom Gods Destroy, Dagger of the Mind, and Errand of Mercy.
Imagine when this technology replaces shock therapy. I can hear the cuing up of Peter Gabriel's "Shock the Monkey"..., mixed with Men Without Hats' "Safety Dance" and Blancmange's "Living on the Ceiling" after thinking of all those wires and emitters to be hooked up...
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Yeah, probably. But it doesn't have any thing to do with cows stomachs.
... the nintendo 64. Didn't they have a device that measured biorhythms and changed things based on that? Isn't this technology seriously old now?
In Soviet Russia Neural Impulse Actuator controls you! ...ya, I guess that was kinda obvious.
"The ability to delude yourself may be an important survival tool" - Jane Wagner -
When I have mod points I'm going to bind "roll eyes" to troll and "smile" as funny.
NIA Brain-Computer Interface, Mind-Control
yet another three-letter government agency wanting to control my mind.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
you can't just magically think "shoot that guy"
Yep, the technology isn't there for that to happen yet. However, here's food for thought: the NIA allows you to bind key strokes to a particular neural pattern, which would allow you to think "shoot!" and have it shoot. Why not add an eye recognition device that would move the FPS view according to where you were looking?
Ok, seriously. Does this run on linux? I have switched over to linux 100%, so when I play team fortress or other games like it, (ohh I bet portal could be played with this) I am running in linux under wine. Has anyone read or had experience with this running under linux, or at least does it run under wine successfully?
...how about just making BETTER GAMES???
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
...it blend?
Jeremy http://alucinari.net
Actually with more sensors it should be able to read eye movement like that. Right now it just seems to read muscle tension in your face generally with one of the sensors so it could only do up and down or side to side. But if you had more sensors you should be able to detect where you are looking pretty accurately after some calibration.
So far as making it point and fire on a thought command you could in theory already do this if you use an aimbot or some other cheat that lets you do that with a single command, just bind it to the appropriate mental trigger.
Maybe we will eventually have a mask of some sort so that we could have more sensors to detect specific muscle movements and such on top of detecting brain waves.
In Russia The games control your mind.
Stupidity only gets you so far, then you've gotta try
..the use of the NIA in strategy games.
I think I'll have to fap.
It picks up a neural pattern. Even in the early Duke university studies, using this type of setup with monkeys, the monkeys learned quite quickly to generate the neural pattern without the physical motion. Human subjects are even better.
It does not allow you to "think shoot". When you think 'shoot' you are actually generating a quite different pattern almost every time you think it. The regular neural patterns occur when you begin to make a physical movement i.e. when you send info OUT of your brain to other parts of the nervous system. Pure thought is currently impossible to 'read', and as more research is done it appears that we might not EVER be able to really 'read' what you are thinking.
So in your example, a system could be setup to track your eyeball motion, and the motion of your trigger finger. With enough training, it could actually pan a camera or targetting system without you having to actually move your eyes, and fire without you actually having to pull your trigger finger. However, you still won't be able to 'just think shoot' and have it work.
The difference is subtle, but important; this technology won't be able to read your thoughts or be used as a lie detector.