While it maybe largely impossible to send signals from computer into your brain, barring surginal implants, and it mayremain so for some time.. I would imagine that all senses, exept perhaps taste could propably be stimulated by someform of external hardware pretty well anyway.. as long as your body don't move around...Imagine VR interface where you lay inside the device (think solarium.. or the system used to control the "Navibots" in the Avatar movie) but with imbedded headphones for audio and stereo displays for vision and hundreds or thousandsof computer controlled, pressurized air nozzles or something covering the interior to simulate the sense of touch to every part of your body and possibly some device that sprays various chemical combinations to your nose to simulate smell... I would imagine something like this could be build using the technology that exists today.. no ??And the motor control ??Looking at device like Emotiv EPOC..It can apparently tell your facial expressions based on your brainwaves in realtime, and you can teach the deviceto recognize some limited number of conscious thoughts and intents of your own choosing and it costs just ~300$And it seems the limits are largely or entirely in the software.. If you can pay thousands and thousands more andget a developer version with access to raw EEG data, you can program it to deal with it any way you see fit andthe cheaper version can apparently use the programs as far as the hardware is conserned...And how much more can those medical EEG machines with their shitload of sensors get out from your head ??How far are we from being able to read enough from your head to be able to provide motor control for a fullbody virtual avatar ??

Given extreme brain complexity, without extreme radiation power to burrow into the brain to scan it (which will as well destroy it), what we got now is pretty much top-notch.You really just need a matrix plug.

no, there are excellent devices that can accurately read brainwaves remotely already. no need for an implant, a plug in or even an item that you wear. brainwaves can be accurately read and controlled by a computer already remotely, without any kind of touch at all. i can't remember where i saw the device but they can get it to do those simple computer tasks, you know, like forward and backwards when you concentrate and the device scans brainwaves from a distance.wish i knew where i saw it so i could post the link. i think the main challenge is actually interpreting brainwaves in the computer to do advanced functions.

Yes I read a lot about that lately, and the truth is, these devices are bollocks. Simple xbox controller grants much more control and precision. To really nail it, you need a brain implant.

Direct Neural Interfaces (DNI/BCI) may not be that far into the future. Most of this stuff is rather old now, so there is probably much more progress on this front than I show here:"At http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CR_LBcZg_84This talk is about research done to allow a monkey to control a robotic arm, as well as a virtual arm- including receiving sensory feedback from the virtual arm. Potential path to a direct neural interface for VR?They are doing this suff with humans too.A robotic hand that can feel:http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=X85Lpuczy3EIt's possible to hack your brain, forcing you to reveal information that you’d rather keep secret:http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134682-hackers-backdoor-the-human-brain-successfully-extract-sensitive-dataWe can reconstruct visual images from fMRI data:https://sites.google.com/site/gallantlabucb/publications/nishimoto-et-al-2011We can record what people are dreaming about:http://www.nature.com/news/scientists-read-dreams-1.11625Cracked retinal coding, now a functional prosthetic eye:http://www.ted.com/talks/sheila_nirenberg_a_prosthetic_eye_to_treat_blindness.htmlNow decoding speech signals in the brain:http://www.nature.com/news/voicegrams-transform-brain-activity-into-words-1.9945I have been waiting most of my life for a Direct Neural Interface. Until then, my Rift and my Hydra will be my "Poor Man's" gateway to VR.And here is another key to DNI (Direct Neural Interface):"mind meld" here we come!And now, damaged parts of a brain have been replaced (bypassed) with a microprocessor, "restoring the circuit and bypassing the damaged area entirely", restoring the rat's ability to feed itself... Now we just need that extra bypass circuit to record, transmit, receive, and replay virtual experiences...So yeah, we are getting there, perhaps much faster than we expect...

4 weeks is a pretty good learning curve for the feedback.Its a pity none of the products being targeted at consumers seems to be worth anything. I wonder if its hardware costs or software complexity that's holding them back.

How far are we from BCI VR ?? | Meta Community Forums

25 Replies

cerebral
Honored Guest
12 years ago
about motoric control i wouldnt be that concerned at all.
For example for knee and elbow joints you need only two opposite movement commands, up and down.
Now if i think of a spider which has pretty good control of their 8 feet(even in 6DOF) and their motoric nervous center which must indeed be very small it becomes very obvious why the monkey 'Aurora' in the experiments of Miguel Nicolelis was able to assimilate a third robotic arm with applying just a few hundred electrodes.
There are so many insects that have excellent control of their limbs but only tiny brains.
That is so funny because we could extrapolate this movement commands to so many different virtual skeletons, like the ones of a bird or a tiger which indeed are very similar since human anatomy evolutionary derived from them.
geekmaster
Protege
12 years ago
And now we have a primitive form of neural interface allowing amputees to control a limb with their thoughts, with sensory feedback:
cerebral
Honored Guest
12 years ago
its crazy where humanity is heading. When will the first human head be connected to a robotic body including artficial organs, limbs? Until now pretty much every organ can be replaced even though they are in a preliminary state and far from perfect. Believe it or not but a soul is transpantable. They already did it with a head of a monkey, but then the body of the other monkey rejected it after 7 days.
Yesterday i finally found on the net the solution for surpressing completely real world sensory signals. (i had that idea 1 year ago actually thinking of the perfect sleep).
This 'tech' that exists since the fifties and was invented by a neuropsychiatrist named John C. Lilly is called 'isolation tank'. Its nothing more than a bathtub filled with saltwater moderated at your body temperature which lets you float weightless on the surface of the water. The real clue about it is, that it cuts off all sensory input from your skin and muscles because its moderated at your body T. Its a closed, dark and silent environment in which your consciousness can extend to a state that monks want to reach while meditation. People describe it as a brain or soul floating in space. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isolation_tank
For VR with neural computer interface or even without like VR today exists it could be a very intriguing experience i think. Oculus VR should buy a tank and do some tests :D . They start upwards 10,000 bugs. But i guess building one is much cheaper.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gn4tsZBOxnc
I really wonder why those tanks aren't yet in peoples houses for a moderate price with all this illness and getting older.
here a DIY isolation tank website. http://www.thedeepself.org/2011/02/version-2a/
Open-Float-Tank-VR.jpg
Clyde
Honored Guest
12 years ago
One thing about the current state of external brainwave sensing is that a lot of data needs to be processed to compensate for the noise in the data. BCI's such as the Emotiv EPOC have a little bit of latency for this reason, that they have to process the signal and filter the frequencies.

On the other hand, Sensory Substitution might help a lot with BCI technology. The human brain is actually pretty astonishing in its ability to handle sensory input. Given easy-to-produce inputs such as vision and audio, we can set up the brain to expect other inputs such as touch. This is demonstrated by the popular "rubber hand" experiment. If the brain is so ready to rewire itself to accept inputs, then perhaps we could replicate senses such as touch with a simple wearable array of stimulators that we can "train" the brain to associate with the body of a VR avatar.
cerebral
Honored Guest
12 years ago
"clyde" wrote:
One thing about the current state of external brainwave sensing is that a lot of data needs to be processed to compensate for the noise in the data. BCI's such as the Emotiv EPOC have a little bit of latency for this reason, that they have to process the signal and filter the frequencies.

On the other hand, Sensory Substitution might help a lot with BCI technology. The human brain is actually pretty astonishing in its ability to handle sensory input. Given easy-to-produce inputs such as vision and audio, we can set up the brain to expect other inputs such as touch. This is demonstrated by the popular "rubber hand" experiment. If the brain is so ready to rewire itself to accept inputs, then perhaps we could replicate senses such as touch with a simple wearable array of stimulators that we can "train" the brain to associate with the body of a VR avatar.

That would be genious. Yes i saw yesterday a lecture of Prof. Oliver Blanke about those phantom limbs aka 'rubber hand'.
Pretty astonishing!
I could imagine a ultrasonic transducer haptic array in a flotation tank so that the array surrounds every part of your body. A flotation tank is ideal because it completely shuts you off from the real world, no muscle feeling no touch, only your innerself. Put on some waterproof earplugs and the Rift and off you go. Currently there is no way around a flotation tank if you want to influence your nervous system already today. Though its very new and few know of it.
So the ultrasonic transducer array could simulate virtual touch sensations but the downside is that one 1cm transducer cost about a dollar. For covering the whole body you would need thousands of them....
Capacative micromachined ultrasonic array (CMUT) could be a cheap alternative because they are fabricated with
lithographic processes. They are also good for very high res ultrasonic imaging. For example to image your arm or leg peripheral nerves if we one day are going to receive a peripheral nerve plug. (A robotic arm that has that real-time ultrasonic imaging sense and a very fine needle at the top that and very carefully and precise injects a plug or nanobots attaching to the nerve, hehe)
Turns out that we dont necessarily need to interface the brain directly. It could all be done via the peripheral nervous system.
Those flotation tanks are inavoidable for BCIs.
homer-isolation-tank.jpg
Felix12g
Honored Guest
12 years ago
If you're going the full route of BCI and isolation tanks, what would you still need the rift for? It seems to be redundant when it comes to a BCI VR setup.
Clyde
Honored Guest
12 years ago
"Felix12g" wrote:
If you're going the full route of BCI and isolation tanks, what would you still need the rift for? It seems to be redundant when it comes to a BCI VR setup.

Further in the future an optical display such as the Rift could certainly be made redundant by artificial visual stimulation. In the meantime, using a device such as the Rift in conjunction with artificial tactile stimulation could potentially encourage the brain to accelerate the remapping.
cerebral
Honored Guest
12 years ago
"clyde" wrote:
"Felix12g" wrote:
If you're going the full route of BCI and isolation tanks, what would you still need the rift for? It seems to be redundant when it comes to a BCI VR setup.

Further in the future an optical display such as the Rift could certainly be made redundant by artificial visual stimulation. In the meantime, using a device such as the Rift in conjunction with artificial tactile stimulation could potentially encourage the brain to accelerate the remapping.

Full route BCI is totally unnecessary because our eyes and ears are already a visual and auditory BCI. Displays or holographic displays, perhaps in contact lens form are here to stay for the next 10 decades at least i think. There is just no need for it and would make things unnecessarily complicated.
What is missing is motoric output and sensory input to move your avatars limbs virtually and get in touch with VR. Sensory input can be simulated with ultrasound or by stimulating the skin electrically (view Senseg:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_11yYgt-h84 ).
Motoric output is still not there, but neuroprosthetics are making great progress. One obstacle though will be to bypass the muscles so that they dont begin to move in the tank.
For the beginning i could imagine holding two waterproof hydra-like controllers in my hands to manouver through game.

EDIT: Emotiv has sucessfully funded a new mind control set on Kickstarter.
It might be that this kind of mind set works much better in a floating tank because in there your are totally focused on your mind. :D
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tanttle/emotiv-insight-optimize-your-brain-fitness-and-per?ref=live
cerebral
Honored Guest
12 years ago
pretty funny! (Homer and Lisa in a sensory deprovation tank)

http://vimeo.com/42916032
cerebral
Honored Guest
12 years ago
The latest fad in neuroscience. Neurophotonics or neural/brain interface 2.0
http://blog.smu.edu/research/2010/09/08/smu-leads-5-6m-research-center-for-fiber-optic-interface-to-link-robotic-limbs-human-brain/
I attached a document about this work that goes more into the details.
Now, if those peripheral neural interfaces really become that good as the author of this work enthusiastically describes (playing piano again) and microsurgery or even MEMS microsurgery emerge one could even consider to sever a healthy nerve completely and place a neurophotonic bridge in there to communicate with VR and shut down muscle activity. Peripheral nerves are the only nerves that can regenerate.
In fact a research group from Tübingen even imagined such a neural interface.
http://www.google.de/imgres?biw=1097&bih=556&tbm=isch&tbnid=jSyL7bbHHgSvAM:&imgrefurl=http://www-ti.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/~bogdan/inter_overview_ger.html&docid=aNlA88xbr5pK6M&imgurl=http://www-ti.informatik.uni-tuebingen.de/~bogdan/gifs/ad2_1n.gif&w=410&h=405&ei=MwLDUpyNKsaBtAbftYDQAw&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=4&vpy=207&dur=562&hovh=223&hovw=226&tx=71&ty=155&page=1&tbnh=158&tbnw=162&start=0&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0,i:99
the article is in german but contains several drawings.

the attachement:
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/117467063/2166

DARPA_neurophotonics.jpg

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How far are we from BCI VR ??

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