Fernando Orellana and Brendan Burns have developed a robot that acts out our thoughts while we sleep. With a technique they have coined “Sleep Waking,” the brainwave activity and REM patterns are measured and transferred to a robot which acts out the dream in live action. Different parts of the dream are acted out differently based on changing brainwave patterns. Don’t get too excited, it’s mostly measuring high activity and low activity and presuming certain emotions and actions based on those activity levels, but who knows how far the technology will eventually go as we are able to further map out the complexities of brainwaves and associate standard patterns of activity with known actions, thoughts, speech or behaviors.
This Tuesday (February 19th, 2008), Emotiv will be launching their Brain Computer Interface (BCI) at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. On the eve of the conference they are hosting an invitation only launch to show off their new technology. They will be showing off a special interactive presentation to a select number of developers who were invited for an old fashioned drinks, cocktails and brain control demonstration. I’ve included a screen shot of my invitation below.
Hopefully, being displayed at well known conferences like GDC 2008 will propel this kind of technology into the spotlight where it belongs and help push development forward.
There’s not a lot out there yet, but as the hardware gets developed and the SDKs get released, we will be seeing more and more pop up.
There are two companies currently working hard to break into the videogame ‘mindspace’ with brainwave recognition technologies, Emotiv and Neurosky.
There are a couple of videos floating out there from each of these companies. Emotiv shows a guy demoing a game that involves rearrangeing stonehenge pieces with his thoughts and Neurosky has a First Person Shooter type demo where each player attempts to crush the opponent with flying objects that are propelled and lifted into the air with the thoughts of each participant.
If the hardware is even somewhat affordable, gamers everywhere would be willing to be even the most simplistic of games for the chance to move objects with their thoughts. With the gamers of the world pouring money into the industry, the technology would advance extremely quickly. Most of the money for brainwave recognition is still being poured into medical use programs through grants and not yet being taken mainstream yet.
Often there is backwards business thinking with technologies that involve some kind of ethical concern (such as mind control). Although pure capitalism through corporate profit taking would provide a much faster path toward medical advancement of this technology, it’s often easier to get the public on board if you are trying to cure a disease or disability rather than make a buck.
Almost no one is talking about it. I even have a hard time finding someone who’s heard of it. It has the potential to influence our lives and our world more than any invention in a long time. So what’s wrong with everyone? I have no idea, but this blog is about bringing to everyone’s attention what should be getting promoted, funded, talked about, encouraged and helped along in every way possible. Brainwave Recognition.
My goal is to create a consolidated information source, discussing the latest breakthroughs in brain wave recognition devices and software that are being developed by a handful of companies and organizations across the world. In various countries, scientists and corporations are developing invasive and non-invasive technologies that allow software to detect and interpret brain waves and then act on them.
