Brain Controlled Tightrope Video Game Shown 248
Bob Sherpowski writes "According to CBBC News, they have come up with a 'game' that you control directly with your brain waves. University College Dublin researchers have designed a game where you are trying to get a monster to walk across a tightrope - if he leans one way or the other you have to concentrate on a box on either side of the tightrope to make him tip the other way. It's still in research and it's not for sale yet but it's the first step. "
The beginning of the end? (Score:4, Funny)
In all seriousness, I'm overwhelmed with Doubleclick ads now, I don't need them being inputted directly.
God help us if Microsoft gets ahold of this. Instead of, "Where do you want to go tomorrow", it's "What do we want you to think about today".
Btw, what happens if you're using that device and you happen to catch a glimpse of Janet Jackson's Half Time show? Is it suddenly blown straight off your forehead? LOL!
Re:The beginning of the end? (Score:2)
The game is controlled by brainwaves, but the input is still "old fashioned" screen and speakers. The brainwaves are only output, and are read by one of those caps that psychology majors like to stick on your head and plug into a suitcase to make you think they're doing something important when in fact, it's the student inteviewing you who is the subject of some ingeniously designed experiment.
The doubleclick a
Re: Predicted in 1917 (Score:5, Informative)
this was predicted in 1917:
Man will, in time, manage to implant the death-forces in man,
related to electrical and magnetic forces, with external machines.
He will then be able to direct his intentions, his thoughts into the machine.
(Rudolf Steiner, Individuelle Geistwesen und einheitlicher
Weltengrund, November 25, 1917, Dornach Switzerland)
This is what the government wants!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
DON'T BUY IT!!!!!!
Re:This is what the government wants!!!! (Score:2, Funny)
Wil Wheaton is a
Maybe not! (Score:2)
The downside
Re:Maybe not! (Score:2)
Funny, I thought the old wives tale was that it would make you go blind, not have seizures...
Whoo! (Score:5, Funny)
The new pong (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The new pong (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Whoo! (Score:2)
I can think of a prototype game. (Score:2, Funny)
"Strip Poker"!
Re:I can think of a prototype game. (Score:3, Funny)
Bah! (Score:4, Funny)
Remember (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Remember (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Remember (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Remember (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Remember (Score:2, Informative)
If the monster dies (Score:2, Funny)
Prior Art (Score:1, Insightful)
This really is repeated research isnt it? (Score:1, Insightful)
what i'd really like is a tv that turned down the volume slowly, and then turned off after i fall asleep.
It's a start but... (Score:4, Funny)
Of course (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow! This will be great for all those games... (Score:2, Funny)
Bike games? (Score:2)
Bike games.
Re:Bike games? (Score:2)
Most decent bike games will require shifting. Not to mention brakes...
No Brakes??? ***AAAAYEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!***
silver top hat (Score:1, Funny)
damn...looks like I'll have to throw out that tinfoil hat.
Re:silver top hat (Score:2)
Cool (Score:2, Funny)
"The Game" (Score:2, Funny)
Luckily Wil Wheaton read Slashdot and hopefully will remember the blinking light sequence that saves us all.
Re:"The Game" (Score:5, Interesting)
If you've read Richter 10, or The Terminal Man, or even read about the experiments with hooking the pleasure centers of a rat's brain up to a button, you'd know the addictive power that that can have.
A rat hooked up to the aforementioned device will eventuall stop eating, drinking, and will ignore receptive female rats to push the button repeatedly, because the electrical jolt to the brain's pleasure centers produces a far stronger pleasure than any normal stimulus ever can.
In The Terminal Man, the guy's brain eventually learned to manufacture false seizures to trigger the same sort of electrical impulses from his implant.
In Richter 10, many people became endophin addicts when their bodies learned to produce headaches on demand to trigger endorphin rushes from their anti-migraine implants.
The Game was the same sort of thing, while holodecks were just glorified video games - they certainly produced pleasure, and anything that produces pleasure can prove addictive, and the people in Star Trek clearly have to have a level of self control to prevent that; but The Game operated directly on the brain, and could produce far greater feelings of pleasure than is possible normally, and thus far harder to resist.
Re:"The Game" (Score:2)
Concentrating on images inside the brain (Score:4, Interesting)
I would be much more impressed if they could tell from my brainwaves wether I am thinking of a car or a dog.
Re:Concentrating on images inside the brain (Score:4, Interesting)
There are many applications for this type of technology even beyond restoring body movement, though. It might become a totally new way of accepting user input for desktop machines. Think of the application you want to run, and it runs it, or write documents by merely thinking words. For gaming, it could mean having the ultimate life-like simulation for first person shooters. Such technology would probably require people to concentrate better on the tasks at hand, however-- no wondering thoughts...
Re:Concentrating on images inside the brain (Score:3, Interesting)
The interesting thing to me was that the boxes are flashing at different frequencies. I suspect their machine is not picking up anything that could be positively identif
Not to ruin your idea (Score:4, Insightful)
These people can in fact move their eyes. That is how current systems work, by tracking the movement off the eyes they can manipulate a pointer over a keyboard.
Also this is just one way of doing it. I seen earlier experiments that worked simply by making the user think of two widely different things. Using that as calibration and then controlling something by thinking of those two things.
So in fact what you suggest was what they used in one experiment and it worked, tv presentator was capable of doing it with only a few minutes of training.
Flashing lights is just easier to make a working model I guess but in practice this could work for anyone with a working brain and who is capable of receiving input sufficient to learn about this.
Pretty amazing stuff really.
Re:Concentrating on images inside the brain (Score:2)
Re:Concentrating on images inside the brain (Score:2)
Or a bomb.
Would sure make Homesec checkpoints a lot more interesting. The harder you try not to think about bombs, the more likely you are to trigger a false positive.
Applications? (Score:5, Interesting)
Or am I wrong ??
Re:Applications? (Score:2)
Re:Applications? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Applications? (Score:2)
Re:Applications? (Score:2)
Re:Applications? (Score:2)
Oh no (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Oh no (Score:2)
No, that's just how you pause.
hey look....it's Gollum! (Score:2)
Virtual Valerie (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh great (Score:3, Funny)
brain waves (Score:2)
Stating the obvious (Score:2)
but isn't any games, or infact any action essential brain-controlled (exception made for political). Sure there might be additional items included in the path, like arms, hands, fingers.
typing reply with my brain... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:typing reply with my brain... (Score:3, Interesting)
We had those in the 1970s... (Score:5, Interesting)
Having never owned one of those biofeedback devices, I can't say if they ever worked, but I saw lots of ads for them in the mid-late 1970s in magazines like Omni and Popular Mechanics.
You can build your own EEG kit (Score:4, Informative)
The OpenEEG [sourceforge.net] people aim to create an affordable EEG kit. There's already some schematics for home tinkerers.
Now I feel bad because I didn't pay attention to learning electronics when I was younger...
Re:You can build your own EEG kit (Score:2)
Re:We had those in the 1970s... (Score:2)
Hell, I did this 20 years ago... (Score:4, Interesting)
I simply interfaced [atarihq.com] to my VCS.
It's about time. (Score:2)
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
something similar years ago? (Score:2)
Re:something similar years ago? (Score:3, Informative)
not the only one... (Score:4, Informative)
the journey to wild divine [wilddivine.com]
It uses biofeedback to control the game, which is a little different than the technique used in this game.
Re:not the only one... (Score:2)
Not that these don't work, can't say either way, it's probably pretty cool. It just figures that it's aimed at the snake oil market.
Biofeedback based on skin resistance and heartrate variability aren't brainwave monitors, howeve
This is similar to the Mind Drive 10 Years ago. (Score:3, Informative)
Skimpy.. (Score:2)
No the other left (Score:2)
Brain controlled game? (Score:2)
Lots of cool brainwave computer interface going on (Score:2, Interesting)
Similar game.. (Score:2)
Instead of reading brain waves, it reads heart rate fluctuations and skin conductance level (sweat), both of which you learn to control over the course of the game.
Does the human brain have limited output potential (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be nice to be able to type into my computer, to be able to interface in a more efficient manner than putting myself in a particular position, putting my fleshy extensions on a bunch of blocks on a keyboard, and then having the keyboard record how they wiggle and tell the computer.
OTOH, a brain-controlled computer would deprive my fingers of their precious exercise.
Oh, yes...a hands-free headset with goggles, one controlled by the brain, would be terribly cool.
Re:Does the human brain have limited output potent (Score:2)
OTOH, a brain-controlled computer would deprive my fingers of their precious exercise.
I doubt it :-)
Sorry, couldn't resist. No offence intended, just a laugh.
Re:Does the human brain have limited output potent (Score:2)
It would be nice to be able to type into my computer, to be able to interface in a more efficient manner than putting myself in a particular position, putting my fleshy extensions on a bunch of blocks on a keyboard, and then having the keyboard record how they wiggle and tell the computer.
Now theres an extremely good idea, and by god Im sure its possible with a similar technology. Consider what happens when you type stuff into the computer? Well, you basically thinking of a word and your hands automatica
Re:Does the human brain have limited output potent (Score:2)
But at this point I bet most people are not going to want one of these implanted in their parietal lobe just to play a video game.
On the other hand, you can do a lot better with EEG than these guys
Re:Does the human brain have limited output potent (Score:2)
You mean kinda like the devices in "Strange Days" where you can tape your brain while you're having sex and then go back later and "do it" again? Sign me up!
This isn't really new. (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh, and they also claim to have some Linux stuff in the pipe as well. Though, admitt
I wonder... (Score:2)
Tech Demo? (Score:3, Insightful)
A game presumably has to be fun, and its controls conducive to that, and while the controls for a game including this functionality might be a remarkable technical feat, they could also be absolutely infuriating. We'll have to see.
When these are commonplace; (Score:2)
What will happen if/when these things become commonplace and people are "Used" to controling everyday things with the mind? Could this change the human psyche or affect our communication in some way? Who knows what hitherto unknown behaviours will emerge from training the parts of the brain that might be used in technology l
finally! (Score:4, Funny)
pr0n (Score:2)
does anyone else find it creepy (Score:2)
it's just a styrofoam head... after all...
if they wanted to make it look better on the photo, why didnt they just put a real person under the headset?
It's only a matter time.. (Score:2, Interesting)
No kidding!?! (Score:2)
Hee (Score:2, Interesting)
You wrapped the band around your noggin and a couple of electrodes picked up changes in resistance caused by tensing your muscles. So you could furrow your brow (and move a paddle to the left...) or unfurrow (and
More BCI information (Score:4, Informative)
Upcoming talk and demonstration on the development of Brain-Computer Interfaces: http://www.notacon.org/speakers.html#lowne [notacon.org] (shameless plug)
Invasive, motor-cortical BCI development at Utah: http://www.bioen.utah.edu/cni/Projects/Motor.htm [utah.edu]
Mike Gibbs' work with BCIs at Oxford University's Robotics Group: http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~mgibbs/research.html [ox.ac.uk]
The Neural Prostheses program at the National Institutes of Health includes calls for proposals in BCI development: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/npp/ [nih.gov]
The University of British Columbia's BCI research group: http://www.ece.ubc.ca/~garyb/BCI.htm [ece.ubc.ca]
Results of the 2003 Brain Computer interface competition (focuses on signal processing techniques): http://ida.first.fraunhofer.de/projects/bci/compe
BCI development at the Cognitive Science and Technology group at the Helsinki University of Technology: http://www.lce.hut.fi/research/bci/ [lce.hut.fi]
Dr. Jessica Bayliss's BCI work and extensive bibliography (very important, seminal work on BCI development): http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/research/ [rit.edu] and http://www.cs.rit.edu/~jdb/research/baylissThesis
Dr. Charles Anderson's work at Colorado State University with EEG pattern classification in BCI systems: http://www.cs.colostate.edu/eeg/index.html [colostate.edu]
Manchester University's Toby Howard has written some good articles on BCIs, mostly for Popular Science: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/aig/staff/toby/research/b
Dr. Michael Black at Brown University teaches a course in BCI development: http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs295-7/home.html [brown.edu]
Cyberkinetics, Inc. makes medical-use BCIs: http://www.cyberkineticsinc.com/ [cyberkineticsinc.com]
IBVA has been around for years (Score:2)
And has some kind of linux support.
No, I've no idea why we don't all have one either...
Cowboy Bebop fans! One word... (Score:2)
Requires too much thinking (Score:2)
My brain already controls everything i do (Score:2, Interesting)
Seriously folks, with all due respect, why are we spending lots of money to develop what amounts to an inherently low bandwidth control? Trying to control something by modifying brain waves, to make it go 'left' or 'right', will never compete with a directly wired hand, the nerves of which will always have a much higher bandwidth and
Imagine kids improving concentration and focus! (Score:2)
= 9J =
newsflash.... (Score:2)
Let's file this in the "already been done" category. That would be under Atari MindLink System controller, circa 1984.
Save your money. (Score:3, Funny)
1) Rent a copy of your favorite game.
2) Invite your most passive friend over for the day.
3) Set him up in front of the console.
4) Now spent the whole afternoon telling him how to play, what he's doing wrong, and generally hurling abuse at him. "Left you fuck! Turn left! Oh look, now you're DEAD!"
Eventually you'll either have complete control over his actions or he'll crack and shove the controller up your ass.
Just pray it's not the original XBox controller.
MindSkier (Score:2)
Re:One thing missing for this to take off in the U (Score:2)
Re:Ahh.. Quote comes to mind. (Score:2)
You did? Oh. Sorry.
Re:This is not, in itself, new (Score:3, Insightful)
Offtopic, yes, but flamebait?
Follow the link and see what I'm talking about.
Re:Change for the better or for worse? (Score:2)
Even when the virtual world becomes able to feed you, it'll still cost money (electricity, and whatever nourishment it pumps into you), and it'll work just like a drug addiction. It'll give you pleasure, but it'll drain you financially until you can no longer afford it, but need it to function.
It's probably a good thing, if you look at it from an un
How about... (Score:3, Insightful)
I can think of nothing more pertinent to "balance" than the act of walking.