Play video games with your mind?!

use the force luke, or your head peace

 

They are likening this to yoda and his force powers. Apparently you can control objects in a game with your mind. Your emotions are even being factored in by this device. Weird, I’d try it out, but i think i’d rather use a good ole controller to shoot my buddies.

This updated Emotiv headset is now even more capable of interpreting the interaction of neurons in the brain, picking up electrical activity from the brain while sending signals to a computer sans wires. This makes it a snap for users to manipulate a game (imagine making headshots all the time with perfect accuracy in Counter Strike) and a virtual environment naturally and intuitively.

According to Tan Le, president of US/Australian firm Emotiv, “Emotiv is a neuro-engineering company and we’ve created a brain computer interface that reads electrical impulses in the brain and translates them into commands that a video game can accept and control the game dynamically.” 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. It also doesn’t cost tens of thousands of dollars.”

Here’s how it works: The software has several choices for actions you can take. So, taking the disappearing cube as an example, once you’re hooked up to the headset, you’re directed to run a short, six-second test, where you concentrate on doing something, anything, with your mind–relax, focus, whatever.

Then, once you’ve completed the test, it’s you against the cube. And the challenge is to see if you can reproduce what it was you were doing with your mind during the test; If so, the cube slowly disappears.

Emotiv has also built technology designed to read your facial expressions and emotions. So while there, I saw a demonstration where someone wearing the headset would smile, frown, smile again, and so forth. And a goofy-looking face on the monitor would repeat the expression.

Nintendo’s Wii and Guitar Hero have opened people’s eyes to all-new interfaces, and I’m sure that this would fit into that category. But the things that have made the Wii and the Guitar Herocontroller so successful is that they are easy and intuitive to use. Whether Emotiv’s technology is as well is something I’d have to reserve judgment on.