Captin'
Captain on deck!
The idea of monitoring brainwaves and turning patterns discerned from them into control of a computer has fascinated scientists and forward thinking gamers alike for a long time. Recently CNN ran an article of a monkey controlling a simple computer game with the "power of his mind." So it was only a matter of time before mr. capitalism would make sure that you could harness this technology for what else but, yes, gaming.
And maybe it is still a matter of time if you want to get into technicalities, because the Neural Impulse Actuator, a newly released gaming peripheral for controlling simple game actions with the power of thought, actually monitors a mixture of muscle, skin and nerve activity collectively called "biopotentials." And what's more, reviews have been a bit of a mixed bag, but they do agree that it delivers on its basic premise of hands-off gaming with better reaction times.
The wet dream of a futuristic gaming accessory comes in the form of a headband with sensors on the front, which interprets electrical charges on your skin that originate from an array of subtle bodily functions, and in turn puts them into use by triggering the various actions that you have hopefully had the patience to pre-set.
That's right, due to the unique characteristics of each individual you have to train yourself on this device before you can hope to frag bad guys at the speed of neural signals and USB 2.0 lines.
OCZ, the producer of the device, wants to point out that the NIA can be used with any application or game that accepts input. You have to ask yourself, how good would it be at browsing the internets? Hopefully without revealing new information about yourself by loading up man to man pornos.
The Neural Impulse Actuator is the first commercially available Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) for gamers, but the battle for this exciting market is on and Emotiv Systems is preparing to release one of their own by Christmas '08.
The device is UBS 2.0-powered and will set you back around 159$USD, which shouldn't be too unreasonable a price to a true gaming geek.
__________________
<- Experimental account system, sign-ups not available yet
And maybe it is still a matter of time if you want to get into technicalities, because the Neural Impulse Actuator, a newly released gaming peripheral for controlling simple game actions with the power of thought, actually monitors a mixture of muscle, skin and nerve activity collectively called "biopotentials." And what's more, reviews have been a bit of a mixed bag, but they do agree that it delivers on its basic premise of hands-off gaming with better reaction times.
The wet dream of a futuristic gaming accessory comes in the form of a headband with sensors on the front, which interprets electrical charges on your skin that originate from an array of subtle bodily functions, and in turn puts them into use by triggering the various actions that you have hopefully had the patience to pre-set.
That's right, due to the unique characteristics of each individual you have to train yourself on this device before you can hope to frag bad guys at the speed of neural signals and USB 2.0 lines.
OCZ, the producer of the device, wants to point out that the NIA can be used with any application or game that accepts input. You have to ask yourself, how good would it be at browsing the internets? Hopefully without revealing new information about yourself by loading up man to man pornos.
The Neural Impulse Actuator is the first commercially available Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) for gamers, but the battle for this exciting market is on and Emotiv Systems is preparing to release one of their own by Christmas '08.
The device is UBS 2.0-powered and will set you back around 159$USD, which shouldn't be too unreasonable a price to a true gaming geek.
__________________
<- Experimental account system, sign-ups not available yet