« Video Projecting Artists Will Entertain The Night’s Streets

Friday Frivolity With Space-Babes »

Controling Machines Using Nothing But Your Mind

Posted On: 21 February 2008 By: Jay Oatway Filed Under: No Strings | Runway Hard-Wear | Toys For Geeks | Transhuman Horizons

Have you been longing to move objects with your mind? Yeah, me too.

Well now you can: Emotiv has released a commercial (yes, you can buy one for US$299) version of their mind-machine interface the Epoc Neuroheadset. You can control any game on your PC with the power of thoughts, emotions and expressions [via ubergizmo and The Beeb]

This consumer product is lighter, better designed and has more features than the prototype.

The Expressiv Suite (identifies facial expressions in real-time, so characters respond to the expressions of the player), has 30 new expressions in addition to the existing smile, blink and wink.

The Affectiv suite is now able to detect and respond to tension, frustration and meditation. Games will be able to respond dynamically to player emotions, enabling, for example, difficulty adjustment on the fly.

In addition to the movement-based actions (push, pull, lift, drop and rotate), the Cognitiv suite has a new category of detection based on visualization: the player is now able to command objects disappearance.

Headsets which read neural activity are not new, but Ms Le 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."

See it in action in the video below:

The future is all in your head.

Related Portendings

• The First Glimpse of This Year's Future Tech
  The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) currently under way in Las Vegas kicks off this year's event calendar, offering a look at what's to come in...
• The Shortest Route to The Future is a Straight Timeline
  From artificial brains to smelly TV, the BT Futurology department has released a timeline in fancy Flash animation that portends we had all better...
• Music Lovers Will Burn Fuel in Thier Pockets
  When it comes to digital music, most of us would be forgiven to think 'burning' means writing data to an optical disc. Think again: Toshiba is...
• Space Hotels Will Cater to the Uber-Wealthy Within this Decade
  Lots of time and money on your hands? How about a quick trip to a space hotel -- just five months of training on a tropical island, followed by three...
• Myth Busted: Tinfoil Hat Won't Protect You From Gov't Mind Control
  It's reassuring to know the clever minds at MIT are conducting such life-saving research, like the recent empirical study On the Effectiveness of...

Comments are closed.