by Jay G on March 31, 2009
Ah, to be in charge of your own robot army eh?
Sat there on your cyberpunk throne; flick a switch and thy will be done…..
Better still, your commands are given to your automated troops by the power of your evil mind! MWAHAHHAhahahaahahahahahahahahahh!!!
Errrrrrrrrrrrm…….
Sorry……..
Not sure what came over me then.
This isn’t too far away from what Japan’s Honda Research Institute are developing now that they’ve hooked up with ATR and Shimadzu Corp.
The tech is called BMI (Brain Machine Interface – not the other one that tells you how fat you are) and it uses electroencephalography (ECG).
Like when you have a brain scan the machine measures those electrical currents in your noggin as well as using near-infrared spectroscopy, which looks at brain blood flow.
Put together all that gives you up to 90% accurate robot control without the use of physical implants.
Excccccccccccccccccccceeellent……..
At the moment this involves you sitting in a retro-futuristic chair whilst wearing a crash helmet.
This is just the first stage of RULING THE WORLD WITH MY CYBER SQUADRONS VAPORISING ALL THAT OPPOSE MY GREATNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OOooo……..I think I need to lay down a while….
I got the heads up of this wonderful development via Akihabara News
by Jay G on March 26, 2009
Fancy controlling your games with the power of your mind?
Neurosky’s Mindset is ready for PC gaming consumption starting in June according to the press release.
For those of you unaware of the Neurosky Mindset: It’s a gaming controller that monitors brainwaves and uses those readings to carry out specific actions within a game.
The demos include sliding boxes, lifting objects, and setting stuff on fire.
Quite mundanely in comparison; they also double as a pair of normal headphones with a bluetooth mic built-in.
By relaxing and concentrating you can change what happens on the screen.
There is a probe that helps pickup brainwave signals, or “electrical potentials”.
The computer detects the type and magnitude of waves you generate in certain scenarios, then adjusts the sensitivity during calibration so that gameplay should be achievable for everyone.
The Mindset isn’t attempting to replace standard gaming controls – apparently Neurosky is hoping that they’d add functionality that doesn’t require further, more complex button combos – which sounds a noble cause to me.
The Mindset will be available in June for around $200.
Neurosky says they would like to partner up with companies and developers down the road (they’re launching with Toshiba in Japan), but want to get the hardware out there so that apps can start showing up in the marketplace.
It looks like the main stumbling block will be third-party developer support as the system wont add any new functionality to current games.
The kit will include:
* Instructional videos and detailed documentation
* “NeuroBoy,” – a game demo and example environment that highlights different ways to implement NeuroSky’s brainwave algorithms. In the game, you play as NeuroBoy, a gifted kid with mental super powers. Float, push, burn, and interact with the world using your mental might.
* Brainwave Visualizer and NeuroSky’s demonstration tools – The Brainwave Visualizer paints brainwave activity dynamically displaying the information in an artistic and vibrant manner. With the additional NeuroTech R&D Kit, users can perform their own brainwave research, or develop their own software and hardware applications to interact with, and take advantage of all the MindSet’s capabilities.
System Requirements:
* Windows Vista Preferred
* 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo or Equivalent Processor
* 1GB Memory
* DirectX 10
* 256MB 3D Graphics Card for Games/Demonstrations
If you’re a bit handy there will be an SDK out in the summer so you can build your own apps.
Read more about the Neurosky Mindset
Ah, to be in charge of your own robot army eh?
