Mindwave mobile

If VR makes these suddenly popular, you think how long would it take for "jedi simulator" to emerge? And what casting the spells with your mind in RPGs will look like?

"raidho36" wrote:
If VR makes these suddenly popular, you think how long would it take for "jedi simulator" to emerge? And what casting the spells with your mind in RPGs will look like?

The real answer is "quite a while".

The key to getting a good Brain Control Interface is having a repeatable way of triggering something. With the Neurosky, I have access to the raw signal data, the raw data split into frequency bands (alpha, beta, delta waves etc) and a couple of pre-calculated values for relaxation and focus which Neurosky calculate. As well as that, there is blink detection.

Its going to take some time before people learn ways of controlling those well enough, or, more likely, someone finding a combination of them which is consistent for a given mind action to enable any kind of mass market control.

Having said that !

I have my own little programs where I use relaxation and focus to compete against the computer and it feels very real. In its own way, its just as strange to be controlling the computer with your mind as it is to be using VR.

If I get time, I will play with my mindwave and use it to control things in the oculus. Blinking as a method of selecting is good. Floating around with different colours / music around you and learning which ones are more relaxing for you could be fun in VR.

Ideally, I would set up a neural network to see if I can identify sequences of thoughts/events which I can use to trigger recognisable actions.

A brief story about the 'game' I have written so far:
When i was at university, I wrote a game called Psychic Phenomena. It was on an Apple II and it was basically a ball in the middle of the screen which randomly moved left or right.
Two sets of drunken students would try and get it to move their way. Of course, there was no connection between the game and anyone's mind but after a drink or two it was fun.

When I got the mindwave last year, I wrote the game again except for real. My focus or relaxation vs a random move by the computer.
Whereas I struggle to beat it when I use focus as the main tool, my son beats it every time. I can beat it every time if I use relaxation.
Of course, I can make the computer stronger by moving the boundaries of when it moves so it can easily be made to work at different levels.
Different people try and focus in different ways when playing it. Personally I find that if I look just to the left of the ball, my focus increases a lot. I have no idea what that says about my mind, probably nothing, but its a clear effect for me.

Anyway, enough babbling. I think that BCI will have a role to play in future games but it isn't quite ready yet. It needs to have a group of developers playing with it and experimenting with it in the same way we are with the Rift. It will be fun when its here and, in the meantime, I am having fun with it !

Cheers

G

Well obviously it's not for everyone - it requires some badass training before you can even use it. But I actually thought of games involving magic and such. Normally, casting a spell is a mouse gesture at best, or just click with specific spell selected in common. With brainwave readers, it's possible to make users actually perform specific mind efforts to cast a spell, just as it's supposed to.

Other than that, modern tech isn't quite fast to react and isn't quite accurate either, amount of input channels is low, etc.

"raidho36" wrote:
Well obviously it's not for everyone - it requires some badass training before you can even use it. But I actually thought of games involving magic and such. Normally, casting a spell is a mouse gesture at best, or just click with specific spell selected in common. With brainwave readers, it's possible to make users actually perform specific mind efforts to cast a spell, just as it's supposed to.

Yes, definitely. Its just a question of imagining the best way to do it. The focus and relaxation are good as long as the limitations are allowed for in the program (They come in at 1Hz for example so the reactiveness needs to be played with). The raw data comes in at around 100Hz (I think) so no problems with that being reactive.

"raidho36" wrote:
Other than that, modern tech isn't quite fast to react and isn't quite accurate either, amount of input channels is low, etc.

Yes, I agree. But its fun playing and seeing what can be done !

Hi Grahamb,

Thanks for sharing your experience combining these two technologies,
could you be a bit more specific on what is that you are actually looking at within the OR while wearing the Mindwave mobile?

Best regards

Rocio