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Open Source Headset Enables New Mind-Controlled Devices (popsci.com)
An anonymous reader writes: "When DARPA funded research into a brain-computer interface, artist and engineer Joel Murphy and his former student Conor Russomanno built a working prototype," reports Popular Science. After a crowdfunding campaign, the team successfully developed an Open Source version -- a $399 headset that can register brain-wave electricity (named Ultracortex), along with a $99 board named Ganglion that can use those signals to control mechanical devices. "We want it to essentially be a Lego kit that you get in the mail, which also just happens to be a brain-computer interface," says Russomanno.
Their web site is already accepting pre-orders, though because both the hardware and software are open source, you can also generate your own headset with a 3D printer. And according to the article, two British students are now using the technology to create an app that issues commands to a smartphone by winking.
Their web site is already accepting pre-orders, though because both the hardware and software are open source, you can also generate your own headset with a 3D printer. And according to the article, two British students are now using the technology to create an app that issues commands to a smartphone by winking.
...over a half century ago.
http://openbci.com//images/fro...
1. The URL has a redundant slash.
2. A huge, 4.18MB animated GIF, really? You want people to wait that long to read your crazy website?
Well if this mind control device is Open Source, that's all right then.
Controlling mechanics with your thoughts is the next logical step now that voice-control has been realized.
Until the mind-controlled devices begin to learn your preferences and offer to make decisions for your convenience.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
Open source applies to software. Software has source code.
Devices controlled minds.
Awesome! If it requires brain activity, that will exclude most government agencies!!
You can already command your computer or smart phone by voice without a dorky $400 headset and $100 board. And by touch. And if there was a real need for an app that would do stuff when you wink at it, it would already be out there. Oh wait - it's already possible for handicapped people to control their computers by sight.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
NeuroSky only provided a handful of abstract levels. What data does this hardware provide, and what software is needed to use it?
... for it to work, you must think in Russian..
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
<rimshot>
The brain produces millivolt signals.
Now try to detect them through a layer of bone, which is a pretty good insulator, and skin. What you get correlates roughly, but you can't localise the source of a signal. It's very hard just to get out enough to control a mouse cursor. Slowly and awkwardly. With enough practice you'll be typing at minutes per word.
A little disappointed, actually. Knowing how our overlords would enslave us would have made for a much better article.
At least it could have been open-source mind control...
Only the 4 channel kit is available for 399.99 (299.99 for the MkIV Headset and 99 for the ganglion 4 channel board.) It's a 10x10 or 10x20 electrode setup however, which means even their best kit can't provide full neural coverage (899.99 for the 8+8 32 bit microcontroller interface kit, meaning 1199.98 total.), so you can get 16 electrode coverage for 1200 dollars, or fudge the mounting and software and use however many boards you'd need to actually achieve full electrode coverage without doing different partials each time.
That said, the headset itself looks pretty nice, but the hardware still isn't where it needs to be. And how much utility do those 4 channel boards REALLY have, outside of hyping up a 400 dollar neural headset?
In the realm of copyrighted hardware, this really IS open source. Since generally the hardware plans don't have to be provided to the copyright office (a true travesty, reflecting on how many aircraft and other engineering designs have been lost!)
If only the final copyrighted object has to be provided, then providing the blueprints/source for that really does qualify differently.
this isn't new this has been around and available for years (it has been revised and improved many times)
Why would anyone need more than 640K of RAM on a computer?
Why would anyone need a color monitor?
Why would anyone want to connect PCs using a LAN?
Why would anyone want to connect to "The Internet"?
Why would anyone want to use a mouse instead of a keyboard?
I've heard all of these questions asked, in all seriousness, by people in the computer industry.
Who knows why! But I'll bet somebody will come along and do something really cool with this brain-control interface.
open-source device mind-controls you!
It is POSSIBLE to control computers with brains;
It is POSSIBLE to control brains with computers;
It is POSSIBLE for ONE brain to control ALL the brains in the country via computers.
Today is 1983-12-31.
Surrender your thoughts.Surrender your life.
You life do not exist.
It never did.
Any rumors that it may have are lies.