Thought-Controlled Computers, Video Games The Next Leap In Technology

The Times Online reports that the next leap in computer and video game technology is thought-control:

Satoru Iwata, the president and chief executive of Nintendo - which is expected to sell about 25million units of its successful Wii video games console this financial year - has no doubts about the next gaming boom. "As soon as we think something in our brain, it will appear within a video game," he told The Times in an exclusive interview.

"You'll probably need to wear some kind of hat or helmet or something..."

...As far-fetched as it sounds, Mr Iwata's claim - which brings to mind the plot of Craig Thomas's bestselling 1977 novel Firefox, about a mind-reading Soviet fighter aircraft - is already coming true: the world's first thought-controlled game is expected to be launched by the Sydney company Emotiv by the end of this year.

Co-founded by Allan Snyder, a neuroscientist and former University of Cambridge research fellow, Emotiv says its EPOC headset features 16 sensors that push against the player's scalp to measure electrical activity in the brain - a process known as electro-encephalography. In theory, this allows the player to spin, push, pull, and lift objects on a computer monitor, simply by thinking.

Despite widespread scepticism, pre-release tests have suggested that the technology works. "This is the tip of the iceberg for what is possible," said Tan Le, another of Emotiv's co-founders, during a recent press demonstration. "There will be a convergence of gesture-based technology and the brain as a new interface - the Holy Grail is the mind."

Related: Computer "Reads" Minds By Looking At Brain Scans

Comments

[adnmoh1]

me want now! GITS is finally becoming a reality, hopefully within the next decade we could have cybernetic implants as well as cybernetic augmentation. I need this! My mother may not have many years left for her, if we can atleast access the mind, the body, and enhance or replace organs with cybernetic replacements i believe the age of man could go from a mere 67 years to around 200-300 years, who knows maybe expand it to where a single cybernetic human can live into the 1000 year ranges. it is required for the next evolution of mankind, along with the singularity, we need to move beyond the flesh and bone and into steel and chips.

[danoj]

Finally, and here I have been using my hands like a sucker for all of these years.

[JonasH]

This would be great news for gamers, but for one small detail. Having to think...

[imajoebob]

Absolutely useless, except for the disabled. It's the end of typing and talking at the same time. You won't be able to think about what the next paragraph will be until you finish the current one. Basically, it's an all or nothing proposition. You won't be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

[Kevbo68]

You're telling me I'd have to actually have thoughts to play these games? Where's the fun in that?

[jubo]

Tell me when we can have home CAT scans, and the likes thereof...

And let me keep my pinkies.

[Kevbo68]

Wait. I'd have to 'think' to use this thing? That's no fun.

[texasgnuowner]

Thought-controlled computers? Well, that should prevent some of the trolls from posting.

[jubo]

Nice one.

[InformedSources]

"headset features 16 sensors that push against the player's scalp to measure electrical activity in the brain - a process known as electro-en­cephalogra­phy. "

Hello, Times Online? Anyone home? Electroenc­ephalograp­hy (EEG) was invented in 1929 in Germany by Hans Berger. For 80 years it has been one of the most common technologies for diagnosis and research on cerebral function. When you go to a sleep lab for diagnosis, and they attach all those wires to your head? That's EEG.

This article makes it sound like there's some new technology involved. There isn't. It just hype from the computer game industry. But of course, the reporter who wrote this doesn't know the difference.

[doug108]

I know that this sounds like I should already be wearing a tin foil hat, but isn't the idea of a machine that can register your thoughts from across the room a little scary?

[doug108]

Thought I'd post it a third time, just to seem really crazy.

[Bub]

If you had a smart machine, that could register your thoughts from across the room, you wouldn't have had to worry about posting three times. ;-)

[doug108]

I know that this sounds like I should be wearing a tin foil hat, but isn't the idea of a machine that can register your thoughts from across the room a little scary?

[doug108]

I know like this sounds like I should already be wearing a tin foil hat, but isn't the idea of a machine that can register your thoughts from across the room a little scary?

[gcallaghan]

This will be a huge failure unless the apologist trolls who post here are kept out of the testing phase. Leave that job to people with FUNCTIONING brains.

[protagonia]

Why not? They already control OUR thoughts now, might as well.

We spend an enormous part of each day fidgeting with gadgets. They own us. We are slaves to these toys, now.