I have just read a BBC story about Emotiv, an Australian company which plans to launch a game which involves the reading of your brain patterns. The story includes a drawing of the headset that would be used.

I've had a look and the company has had six world applications published, including the Method and System for Detecting and Classifying Mental States, which was published in March 2007 and their Inertial Sensor Input Device in June 2008.

That last one is key to the game itself as it involves the way the sensing of the thought waves interact with a computer. The end of the mouse, perhaps. The opening pages offer a brief but interesting survey of how at present we interact with computers.

There is even 'the Method and System for Detecting and Classifying Facial Muscle Movements', which suggests to me a very interesting computer game based on the player's expression.

The way the game would work would be that a headset would be linked by wifi to a USB dongle plogged into the computer, and your thoughts (and facial expressions) would influence the playing of the game.

A gyroscope would control the movement of a camera checking facial expressions (such as a raised eyebrow). All this for $299.

Douglas Englebart's original patent for the mouse, incidentally, was called the X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System, and was also a revolution in its time.

I am sure that many are thinking that the ability of computers to sense what you are thinking could be used to conduct interrogations of prisoners - or the interviewing of potential staff.

Rating

By Steve Van Dulken  on   Jul 26,2008

Add a comment  |  Add a rating  |  Email to a friend

Keywords

patents    mind    computers    games    software    USB   

Comments

Steve B