Emotiv's headset gives users mind-control over digital objects
Emotiv's headset allows users some control over objects on a computer. It is possible to move things around, with limited application, with your mind.
(Credit: Emotiv)I've just made a small orange cube disappear with my mind. No hands necessary.
I'm testing out the San Francisco company's so-called brain control interface, the latest iteration of technology it first showed off a year ago, but which, unlike last year, is now almost ready for prime time.
The idea is a blending of hardware and software: A headset that seems a little like the one from the James Cameron-written 1995 film, Strange Days, complete with a set of sensors that are built to read your brain waves.
The software then is designed to interpret those brain waves in such a way as to allow users to manipulate objects onscreen with nothing but their mind.
So that's why I've come to this office in downtown San Francisco, where I'm face-to-face with this little orange cube. It's kind of mocking me, daring me to make it disappear.
The headset is designed to fit snugly on a user's head. The data it produces can, in theory, be plugged into a wide variety of software.
(Credit: Emotiv)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.
In my case, it disappeared, then came back, then disappeared again and then came back. Repeat.
They also ran me through another example, this time trying to pull the cube forward. This one was harder because the brain function I chose to do to synchronize with the challenge was more concentrated. It involved me sort of tensing up my head and imagining the act of pulling the cube forward. It didn't work very well.
But with the disappearing act, I simply relaxed my mind, with much better results.
Of course, there's no relationship at all between brain activity that is consciously trying to "pull" the cube forward and what happens. That is to say, it doesn't matter in any way what you're doing with your mind, so long as what you do during the six-second calibration matches what you do when you try to enact the action.
So really, the software is just looking for a pattern match. It's not all that complicated a concept, though I'm sure it's a pretty difficult engineering feat.
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.
For now, this is all still just in prototype phase. But Emotiv promised me that the headset would be available in time for Christmas this year, at a price of $299. It'll come bundled with a game that is geared toward using the technology, and presumably, more games will follow. The success, I think, of this product, will be how easy it is for developers to build the technology into their games. And that, presumably, is why the product is being showcased during this week's Game Developers Conference, here in San Francisco.
Emotiv also said that the company is working on a partnership with IBM to integrate the brain control interface technology with Big Blue's virtual worlds projects.
To be perfectly honest, I think this technology is a ways from being ready for any hard-core application. Based on what I saw, it's very interesting and even quite impressive. But I just don't know if it can improve fast enough to make a real difference in the market in the next year. Perhaps it can, and if so, that would be fantastic.
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 Hero controller 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.
Still, I was able to make that cube disappear without using my hands. And that's something.
Daniel Terdiman is a staff writer at CNET News covering games, Net culture, and everything in between. E-mail Daniel. 
This will have immense value in areas such as therapeutic enhancement of locus of control, neuro-feedback for nerve damage, etc.
Let's not be short-sighted and ignore what's just over the horizon.
Seriously, will these things be safe? I mean, viruses can affect computers. I don't think I would like even the remote possibility that ideas, concepts, 'subliminal' messages could be fed into the minds of children or young people.
What say you? Valid concern? Or digital paranoia?
Personally, I would love to see this evolve into a replacement for the mouse, so I could keep my hands on the keyboard.
things such as subliminal messages are also in the eye of the beholder, it takes someone to actually believe in what they are seeing, in order for it to take effect and that is the same with things like hypnosis and such, howver I do believe that there are some real problems that we may come into contact with, like conditioning.
operational conditioning was really popular in early psychology, and we have found that you can technically condition anyone to just about anything given the right stimulus, so if the rewards were great enough (such as wanting to win the game) then a person would be more apt to want to do the action whatever that is... this could lead to people maybe taking the gaming experiences out into the real world and wreaking havoc, but yet again this is probably much more paranoia than this product deserves.
Except..
For this to work reliably, the user has to create and evolve repeatable set of behavioral states they can easily repeat and reliably emit. There is training at work here and the fascinating questions involve determining the ranges of behaviors some user population can reliably emit and if over time, they statistically cluster around some set of behaviors.
It begins as a pure first order system being measured to drive a device. Once the behaviors are learned by the device, it becomes a second order system that only acts correctly if the emitted behavior matches the training set. The question then is, can third order feedback be put into the system software that guides the human toward a desired behavior or state of mind.
My intuition is yes. Now mind control is possible using an input device to the screen because of the guided effect of measurement. It isn't mind control precisely because it won't make you do what you don't want to do. It is like hypnotism where the willingness to relax and accept the stimulus source lowers inhibitions. My guess is the affective range is similar to and within the same bounds as hypnosis therapy, but I await test results. It could be stronger if there is an unknown coupler in the expressions on the screen and the training states.
Better than that Cheers episode with Cliff.
Edits would be weird though, as you'd probably get a lot of stray throughts (i.e. static or errors).
But at least we'd have the transmission end of a two-way mind-to-mind link.
The real trick is getting people to learn to correctly interpret the signals being sent to them. Are the people processing visually, audibly, or some other form of symbology? I think that interface is going to be more difficult. Although if you processed the incoming message as a audio feed into the person's headphones, and recorded wave activity at the same time; then you could try to impose the wave activity recorded in the hopes of getting the brain to receive it as sent.
My head aches just thinking about it. But damn close to functional telepathy. Borg Collective, here we come.
Of course, it would be a lot easier to link certain brain activity with an action that the user already mentally associates with that activity (such as imagining pulling the cube toward you). This might be more effective if, during the 6-second calibration, the program displayed the action you would be linking your brain activity to. Then you could more easily pretend you were controlling that activity and be receive the proper sensory feedback. Once the calibration was complete, simply re-visualizing pulling the cube toward yourself might be enough to trigger the activity.
i published it on my gadget blog too http://taranfx.com
regards,
Taran
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- by corycountree September 11, 2009 11:19 AM PDT
- Deep Computed BCI: A Short Story
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(13 Comments)Imagine your motor cortex fully activated while you have full muscle tone but both what your cortex says you are experiencing and what you are actually experiencing are not what you body is actually doing. You were trained to do this on a brain computer interface. Highly Skilled lucid dreamers in intense sessions and brain tomography on the level of seismic tomography make this all possible. Accessing the brain thru non-invasive means is vital in Berlin where Brain Computer Interfacers and the Locked-in are moving things with only their minds; however, one might say that all this research is treading water awaiting advances in Neuro-surgery. I?m pitching the thoroughly developed non-invasive technique as a necessary prelude to the invasive interface. I?m just looking for sympathetic places to post the story I?m telling in the form of a fictitious photo journal.
http://deepcomputedbciashortstory.blogspot.com/