Mind Over Computer

"We've created a brain computer interface that reads electrical impulses in the brain and translates them into commands that a video game can accept and control the game dynamically," says Emotiv president Tan Le.

Using non-invasive elctroencephalography (EEG), Emotiv's neuro-headset offers unprecedented brain-to-computer interfacing without forests of electrodes, trained technicians, or thousands of dollars. Intended for consumers, the "Epoc" will hit the market later this year for just $299.

Users in virtual environments will be able to pick up and interact with items solely by imagining the act. Capable of detecting over 30 actions and emotions, the headset's uses also include more realistic real-time avatar facial expressions -- wink, and your avatar winks.

And as always, technology and sexuality remain closely linked: popular geek blog IO9 already muses on the ramifications for virtual sex.

Comments

Psychedelic users got the 1-up

Submitted by psychonaut on Sat, 02/23/2008 - 14:06.

zezt, you sound like an evangelical christian stuck in the wrong time and place. you need to learn how to not fear your environment around you or it will bring about the end just that much sooner. But anyways, i wonder if on a hallucinogen you would be able to control the game better seeing as this is an EEG reader and your brain wave activity is increased while tripping and it would be able to recognize your brainwaves more clearly.or would it just be harder to respond to your thoughts because they are flying around in all crazy directions inside your head.

In response to zezt

Submitted by psychonaut on Sun, 02/24/2008 - 18:57.

i'm am fully aware with the fact that not eveyone lives in the same way i do and do not understand why i was born with certain privelages while others have not and are suffering unjustly.

i do not believe these technologies are necessarily a distraction in order for us(humans) to remain ignorant to the fact that there is war and suffering in the world, which you seem to think.

The technology in particular happens to be an artist's creation. A creation that will allow you to do something previously improbable. i am sorry others have not been born with the same rights as me and i will help those others in what ever way i can in order for them to experience the same things as me, but i also do not want to feed fear in any way, which your consipiracy theory has been feeding you spoonfuls of. believing theories such as this and allowing them to scare you and feel fear may actually be there real psychic experiment and fear is the energy harnessed from unsuspecting minds. everyone is born with a free mind and the choice is up to you to die decaying in fear or die enveloped in love.

p.s. "the future is here now, its just distributed unevenly." - unknown author

RAW

Submitted by psychonaut on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 19:26.

may i suggest reading Robert Anton Wilson's work Illiumatus and his Cosmic Trigger series.

Chill duder

Submitted by Baxter White on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 04:02.

In my opinion, you haven't thought all of this through and taken everything into account. Firstly, right now, there is no need to freak out or panic, The way this technology and the way that this device works is by putting it on your head and it responds to electrical impulses within the brain, and then sends those impulses to a USB drive that aknowledges different brainwave patterns as certain actions or decisions. For there to be your idea of mind control or the matrix, the device would need to have a receiver on it, which it does not, and likely won't. The developers of this technology knew this when they were designing it, they've taken into account what this device might look like and do in the future and will take appropriate measures to ensure the safety of anyone using it. Once this mind computer interface goes global and becomes a means of connecting to the internet will your idea of mind control and the matrix be even remotely close to be realized. Not to mention when that does happen, ethics commitees everywhere all over the planet will create a huge fuss over the possibility of this technology being used for mind control, with the potential for viruses to then connect to your brain, for advertisers to invade your head with bullshit products. your desperation and the idea that everyone is ignorant to the risk factor of this technology is purely fear ridden and unsupported for the most part, given the circumstances of the technology. I might suggest that in future thinking and consideration, you give people more credit, they're not as stupid as they look or as ignorant as they look. I used to think the way you do, the skipping to the worst case scenario as if it were happening tommorow and we can't stop it because people are just that stupid. Take a deep breath, and relax, come what may you know? no sense in worrying about it, because worrying does nothing but cause your body and your mind harm. Live in the moment, see things as they are in the present not in the future, the problem with todays world is that theyre to focused on the future when its the present that should be looked at, what we do today determines what happens tommorow. Instead of freaking out, try and make a difference about it, educate people, not in a freakish manner, but give them the pros and cons of this technology, they will understand and they will think about what you showed them when the time comes for computer mind interfaces to send and receive and they will think critically. I hope that maybe I've got through to you in an understanding manner, and I'm sorry if I offended you, but thats just the way I see it. I thankyou for your time and effort for reading this.

No worries

Submitted by psychonaut on Thu, 02/28/2008 - 23:18.

I agree with Baxter here and reminds me of one of my favorite terence mckenna quotes:

"We don't know enough to worry."

i cant think of having my

Submitted by annacrasto on Thu, 09/29/2011 - 11:20.

i cant think of having my business without PCI Compliance, how can you work without security.

enter cyberpunk

Submitted by gnats on Sat, 02/23/2008 - 20:13.

one can hack any technology

Shamanic Training Ground

Submitted by Thom Kennet on Sun, 02/24/2008 - 10:36.

One possible application of this tech might be in creating domesticated environments and staged alien encounters to train cub-shamans in appropriate otherworld behaviour. So when the potentially chaotic waters of the 'wild' real are encountered, the wee initiate has some sort of prior experience, if only in simulations. Maybe the interstellar ambassadors of the future will learn diplomacy in virtual reality, and practice it in some sort of tryptamine journey to the hyperspace Hague.

Maybe World of Warcraft is already doing this...

Whatever, these technologies are wonderful, especially for those with broken bodies, but they are also based on intrinsic human capabilities. Its great that we can simulate a dream trip, but at the end of the day we need to put the artificial environment to one side and dive into the interactive space that is our own auto-immune and nervous system...because thats where, in my opinion, the templates of behaviour are stored, where illness is created and cured, and where the imagination stores its x-rays. We find only echoes of these strange animals in Virtual Reality.

mind training device?

Submitted by visualchemy on Sun, 02/24/2008 - 20:05.

I'd say this device - easily accessible and produced on mass scale could be useful to train the mind using a form of biofeedback. Imagine yourself being in environment, that is reactive to your certain thoughts, actively training certain abilities of your brain... 'CAM' being Computer Aided Meditation? 'Enlightenment' game? just think about POSITIVE possibilities

Moving through karmic

Submitted by Windeva on Tue, 02/26/2008 - 23:33.

Moving through karmic patterns, going back to repair the monadal process to do positive poles after ending up stuck in the negative poles. It could be used for life healing, continuity repairing of ones life. Imagine reliving life virtually and chosing how it will play out, with all the emotional responses of a real life. We need alternatives to healing a very disfuntional damaged humanity. This could be one of the ways.

added later...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7258105.stm

I'm with ya

Submitted by JED on Wed, 02/27/2008 - 15:01.

I concurr on the beneficial potential, v. I've been using biofeedback for meditation for two years, first in Wild Divine, then HeartMath's emWave, with impressive effects. I heard Kurt Smith, head of Wild Divine, describe a test exercise in which 100 persons participated in an online EEG coherence session, going for mass entrainment in select brainwave ranges. That sounds like solid cyber-shamanism to me, might get the Field catalyzed to novel states.

mind/ computer

Submitted by ada on Fri, 02/29/2008 - 07:23.

The technology reminded me of this cartoon -

'THE COLLECTIVE'

http://deoxy.org/forum/showflat.pl?Board=vox&Number=55989&part=1#Post559...

"Virtual Light & Sound Machine" Meditation FREEWARE

Submitted by jerry0065 on Sun, 03/02/2008 - 18:21.

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