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Mind games: computer headset lets brain control action
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It’s mind over machine: a US high-tech company has created a headset allowing computer game lovers to use their thoughts to move mountains and make objects disappear on screen.
Emotiv, a San Francisco-based startup that marries neuroscience and computer engineering, says its EPOC gaming headset offers only a glimpse of what the technology has to offer.
“There is no natural barrier from what we can see,” Emotiv co-founder Tan Le told AFP while demonstrating the headset in the firm’s office.
“This is the tip of the iceberg for what is possible for us. There will be a convergence of gesture-based technology and the brain as a new interface — the Holy Grail is the mind.”
Gamers will be able to get their hands on the gadget in time for the winter holiday season, the company says.
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The EPOC headset features 16 sensors that press against a user’s scalp to measure electrical activity in a brain using electroencephalography. A built-in gyro tracks head movement.
The sensors also register users’ moods and facial expressions, merging the data in computer software that “learns” to match readings with what people are thinking, according to Le.
“There is a direct correlation between thought and what happens on screen,” Le said. “It really fulfills this long fantasy people have had of moving objects just with thought.”
A videogame will be included with the headset when the package goes on sale for 299 dollars at the Emotiv website and select shops.
The martial arts fantasy game has a rural Asian setting. An animated “master” leads players through exercises that include lifting mountains with their minds.
A test of the headset showed that after “training” the EPOC system for less than a minute one could spin, push, pull and lift objects onscreen, or make them vanish, by simply thinking about it.
“Gamers are early adopters of technology and thought control is the ultimate fantasy of gamers,” Le said.
Emotiv has a software development kit available to videogame makers as well as programmers of “anything that involves a human and a computer” including those involved in virtual worlds, cars and medical care.
The technology could be used to let virtual world characters referred to as “avatars” reflect the real-world expressions and moods of the people they represent online, according to Emotiv engineer Marco Della Torre.
The kit for third-party software savants to weave thought-control into programs has reportedly been downloaded from the Emotiv website more than 1,000 times.
“We have a lot of Fortune 500 companies interested,” Le said.
Even law enforcement agencies have expressed interest in the headset’s ability to read people’s minds.
“It certainly could be used as a very accurate polygraph,” Le said. “If you have seen something before, there is no hiding it. There is brain recognition.”
Medical applications could include giving stroke victims or people in comas new ways to communicate.
People wearing headsets while listening to online music could have tunes automatically tagged based on whether they made them happy, sad, excited, or bored.
Le, an Australian telecommunications entrepreneur named Young Australian of the Year in 1998, said the idea for the headset sprang from a chat about brains and technology during dinner in 2003.
Le and fellow entrepreneur Nam Do founded Emotiv with neuroscientist Allan Snyder and computer chip designer Neil Weste.
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July 8th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
very cool…
July 8th, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Lawnmower Man’s in YOUR head now!
July 8th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
creepy..
July 8th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Somewhere in a police station 1/27/2009
Officer: Now why did you go on that 20 man rampage with a shotgun!
Boy: I, I, I, just forgot to take my video game helmet off?!
July 8th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
It could be awesome for gaming, as a gamer and game designer myself i can think about all the possibilities of such of technology, but they lost me there:
“Even law enforcement agencies have expressed interest in the headset’s ability to read people’s minds.
“It certainly could be used as a very accurate polygraph,” Le said. “If you have seen something before, there is no hiding it. There is brain recognition.”
July 8th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Just as government, once our servant has become our master, how long before the computer controls you. The line “weave thought control into programs” is a Freudian slip showing the true nature of this technology. Wake up pilgrims. Have a nice day.
July 8th, 2008 at 1:44 pm
This is probably just to destroy whatever remnants of humanity are left in people nowadays after already being brainwashed by t.v.If law enforcement is interested you had better beileve it can be used invasively.An interface always has feedback.
July 8th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
video games are fun but this is just one more tool of the NWO to dumbdown society so they can continue their rule over us
“you can take what i say to the bank”
-eric
July 8th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I found a youtube video about this very thing put out by the BBC, if this is what is declassified we can be sure they have much more up their sleeves. http://youtube.com/watch?v=wNr3yGcI_V8
July 8th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I can see it’s application in corrupt government lackeys. Reopen the 9/11 investigation….You care about our country… one world government is bad. It might help.
July 8th, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Fred (6), in this month’s Discover magazine they talk about using fMFI for lie detection and said something similar, that, if you’ve seen something before, you can tell from the image. So, if asked if you know someone, or have been somewhere before and you answer ‘no’, but your brain patterns say otherwise, you’ll be outted.
July 8th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
They have had this for a very long time, and an acquaintance of mine actually has one (or something similar), and says its very good treatment for natural ADD/ADHD because it trains your mind to remain focused on one thing for it to work. (and he’s into all organic treatments for everything)
July 8th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Any mention as to the destructiveness of such a device to the blood-brain barrier? I thought not. They’ll never admit something so insignificant…
July 8th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Thought controll–Thought controll. Now where have I heard that before? Uhm.
July 8th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
MK Ultra come to video games.
July 8th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
That’s sad Bill (11), If the world wasn’t so evil we could use this technology for entertainment! when i said they’ve lost me, i meant they have lost my support! In a world where it’s hard to enforce your basic human rights, just think about how hard it could be to ensure such a technology is never applied to play with your brain or to gather informations on how your brain is working… Most of the games are played online these days, with such a device you give a direct pass to your brain to the company hosting the servers you play on. Someone with bad intentions or the government could legally or illegally monitor your brain activities while you’re playing, analyzing your behavior…
Just think about it, let’s say they want to arrest you, if they had a database with this kind of informations, they would know how you react under stress, they would know what scares you, what makes you happy, what are the buttons to push. They could know an awful lot about you just by analyzing your brain activities while your playing to video games. You can be sure this technology will be applied to translate your feelings and emotion to the character you’re playing. At least i know, as a game designer this is how i would use it. So let’s say you’re happy, your character in the game smiles, or if you’re sad or angry, the character will share this emotion and react to your feelings. Making the game a more alive and player oriented game… And when you can move objects with your thoughts in a video game this is plausible and easily done with such a device. I love gaming but is this worth the fun? I doubt it.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:03 am
It’s not the technology that is to fear, it’s the application or the intent of the person or people devising it’s usage.
As for the polygraph-replacement, I wonder what effect convincing oneself that a lie is true can change the brain pattern surrounding that event.
Also of concern is who would be writing the algorithm for state or federal usage, seems like it would need to be conventionalized and regulated so that cops don’t change it or tweak it to suss out wanted results on the fly.
What is regulation anyway though but another state or federal convention.
I personally can’t wait to buy one. NeoSky is another company like this, their first toy to be released is supposed to be a mind-controlled light saber where the level of concentration on it’s lighting up is reflected directly by the thing lighting up.
Also interesting about the shift to mind-computer interfaces is the effect it will have on how we process information… just as we have to learn to use other interfaces and they effect us (drop something, think control-z) this is going change the way we think.
July 11th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
Video games were invented at Sanders Associates which is now part of Lockheed Martin which is now part of BAE Systems. And I’m sure Atari founder Nolan Bushnell got a lot of elite perks – such as a Bohemian Club membership – when he sold Atari to Warner Communications in 1976. And I found out that Freemason scum Leonardo DiCaprio will play Bushnell in a biopic.
July 16th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
We should be getting eachother phone number, and emails, and making groups to eventually strike force these pricks. Seriously ban together, create a militia and stop trying to win freedom through their corrupted minipulative legal system. its too damn easy to get even 300,000 people and massively stump every globalist asshole! Some will still live, but theyre too damn afriad to put their lives on the line so theyll hide in a “cave” or something. So put em’ in check, obviously were all on this site to share our agreement of the gloabalist corruption, we dont need to physically see them, or kill them, we just have to say “hey, heres a million poeple in militia uniforms, if we die we lead by example and they lose, if we live we push them around and shove the freedom bells up there lose assholes!
July 16th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
Its simple, everyone is just afraid to act, or afraid that theyll come after us……people, they already ARE coming after all of us. That what this shit is all about. Why even bother upholding the law for their sake? Uphold it when theyre outta the picture, bt when they have the ink and the goverment stamp they can shoot down any viable point citizens have. Its not illeagal to create militias…its actually mention in the constitution. Infact that why america is here to begin with. Did everyone forget that? or are they too afraid to lose MTV, PS2’s, Mcdonalds, or their lives? Whats the point of living if your just in a concentration camp or cubical living space with a monitor hooked to your body telling you when to breath and piss?