Emotiv Systems of Australia has come up with something very interesting. According to a news report:
Emotiv Systems, founded by four Australian scientists in 2003, will release the $US299 EPOC headset on the US market this year.
Featuring 16 sensors that measure electrical impulses from the brain, the headset – which plugs into the PC’s USB port – will enable games to register facial expressions, emotions and even cognitive thoughts, allowing players to perform in-game actions just by visualising them.
A prototype of the system was demonstrated at the Game Developers Conference in 2007. It certainly wowed the reviewer. It’s now in production and ready for consumer sale.
This fascinates me. I don’t play computer games much (cards, that sort of thing), so this particular version of the technology isn’t on my shopping list: but what about future applications? As it’s further developed, this can replace voice control for the paralyzed; it can allow blind or deaf people to ‘communicate’ with their computers much more naturally; it can be applied to all software, of whatever function.
In the wider field, how about controlling robots? Flying remotely piloted vehicles? Working in a dangerous environment, where a human presence is essential but his or her life would be endangered by proximity? This headset (further developed) could allow an operator to control a dangerous machine by thought, rather than by standing next to a button or control panel where he or she might be at risk.
I think this is the first wave of a whole new level of technology. I’ll be watching with intense interest.
Peter
The uses could be unlimited.
As could the mis-uses. Electrical current and fields can run in both directions: How long then, I wonder, before this marvel with so many beneficial uses is developed initially into a mind reading device, and then into a mind control device? Controlled by the state, “for our own good” of course…
Twenty years ago I would have laughed at myself for thinking in such a paranoid manner – not any more.