Using the brain power to command your geekdom

Honda Research Institute, ATR and Shimadzu have successfully displayed a Brain Machine Interface (BMI)controlling the Asimo. The interface uses electroencephalography (EEG) and near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), and processes complex information from both these “sensors” with the help of a new information extraction technology. As a result, the robot can be controlled merely by thought, without any physical motion. With accuracy at 90 percent, this technology looks extremely promising.

Communicating doesn’t necessarily mean talking. It doesn’t mean writing either. Then what is it? According to Dr Christopher James of the University of Southampton, it is sitting in front of a computer and letting it do all the communicating. We are talking about a Brain Computer Interface or BCI, which lets a person communicate through his or her brain signals. This is achieved using a complex amalgam of computers, electrodes and the internet. Essentially, people can find out what you are thinking without you even uttering a single word. From now, it is not going to be, watch what you say, it will be watch what you think. Scary, but it could soon be true.

The famous world of gaming is gearing head-first into a gesture-based controller. But on the shadowy side of things, we have gaming developer readying games to revolutionize the gaming spree with Jedi-like powers. $120 Star Wars The Force Trainer and $80 Mattel’s Mindflex are the most famous games that you can get home for your kids. These games are out there to test the vigor of your brainwave activity. So, get your kids to wear their thinking caps and then send the balls in the gaming equipment levitating with the power of the brain.

In the clash of the mechanical titans at the Robo-One robot fighting tournament last year, there was amind controlled gladiator bot that the others found an uphill task against. This warrior robot steered by its controller’s neural signals was perhaps the only neural signal-controlled combat robot. A bipedal robot fighter, it weighs 2 kg and is only 50cm. Made by Taku Ichikawa, a fourth-year student at the University of Electro-Communications, the bot is connected to Ichikawa’s skull by a set of 12 electrodes. These electrodes measure Ichikawa’s neural activity, and thus by the commands of his brain steer the robot into and through the combat.

Guger Technologies got the first commercial brain computer interface to exhibit at CeBIT 2010. Being commercialized strictly for patients suffering from locked-in syndrome and other communication-impairing conditions, the Intendix as the technique is called, opens doors for the first commercial BCI that’ll send us dumping our keyboards and mice. Priced at $12,000 per unit, the Intendix has an easily usable interface which can be learned in under 10 minutes of training. To use the Intendix, a cap with EEG sensors has to be worn by the patient. Then concentrating on a grid of letters that flashes on the screen the user can type the word he wants. Getting used to the system, the patients will be able to type 1 letter per second, the seed the interface can manage.

The Berlin Brain-Computer Interface research consortium has taken the power of the brain to control a pinball game. Because those champs at the regular pinball wouldn’t be all that good here, you as a beginner have a good chance to show your pinball skills right out of the brain. Exhibited at CeBit 2010 in Germany, this brain-controlled technology display requires the gamer to wear a helmet that taps the brain waves to let the user play the game.

Soon you may not need a remote to switch the channels. You could open or close your doors, turn off the switches and even lock/unlock your house by a mere prompt from the brain, thanks to the brain-computer interface technology. The BCI technology gives an innovative option of controlling all the interconnected electronic devices. This technology could give an increased level of autonomy to modern humans tired of their demanding routines and even physically disabled people. BCI brings into use the electroencephalogram (EEG) equipment that interprets the electrical activity in the brain using electrodes attached to the scalp. After continuous training, the system learns how to differentiate between patterns of neuronal activity when a human thinks of different activities.

After game controllers with motion sensitive gameplay, we now have the "brain mouse" neural impulse actuator from OCZ. Talking about making your game characters dance to your tunes with a keyboard, now you can make characters in your games dance to your tunes albeit with your thoughts. How cool is that? Think to shoot, think to move, think to emote, and the list is endless. All this is made possible by the neural impulse actuator in tandem with the brain control interface control peripherals developed by OCZ, the enthusiast and extremist hardware provider. The neural impulse actuator uses the brain’s electroencephalograph (EEG) signals and converts them into custom keystrokes or mouse inputs which can then be used to control gameplay. But before that, for the device to obey your brain’s EEG, it needs to be attuned to your brain’s signals. For that, you will need to train and calibrate the controller, for which OCZ offers a comprehensive training and calibration kit with the controller. For the entire neural impulse actuator controller kit, expect to pay $300, which is quite steep by gaming controller standards, but for the kind of technology it offers, very justifiable.

Dr. Javier Minguez from the University of Zaragoza in Spain has developed a wheelchair that is controlled by the power of thought. This chair creates a 3D image of the surrounding area using a laser scanner and the image is then displayed on the screen ahead. Different destinations then appear as blue points on the screen and the only effort that is needed is to concentrate on the point where one intends to go. The prompt from the brain is deciphered using electrodes in a skullcap which are capable of detecting brain activity. Currently developed as a prototype, the scientist now intends to ready a commercial version of this chair.

Pierpaolo Petruzziello, who lost his left hand and forearm in a car accident, was implanted with electrodes into the arm, using which the amputee can now control his prosthetic robotic hand by his thoughts. Being part of a LifeHand experiment carried out by a group of European scientists, Pierpaolo’s left hand was implanted with electrodes last year, while the prosthetic hand wasn’t actually implanted but only connected to the electrodes. Still, in a successful completion of the experiment, Pierpaolo was able to feel sensation and control the artificial limb by the power of his thoughts. Under the $3 million project funded by the European Union, which hopes to connect the prosthesis to the system used by the brain to send and receive signals, Pierpaolo mastered the art of “wiggling the robotic fingers independently, making a fist, grabbing objects and making other movements,” in a month-long period when he had the electrodes connected to the artificial hand – all this by the power of his brain.

If you are a gaming enthusiast and complex keys of your controller affect your performance, a neuro-headset from Emotiv that interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain is here for the rescue. The revolutionary headset, besides allowing the user to operate a game or virtual environment, logically and instinctively by picking up electrical activity from the brain and sending wireless signals to a computer, it will also bestow gamers with the power to move objects by thinking of the action, improving the realism of emotional responses of all characters in the game. The intelligent headset features a gyroscope to detect movement and connects with a USB dongle plugged into a PC wirelessly (unlike it was in the past). To interpret the neural activity, Emotiv’s headset essentially works on the non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) technology. You don’t believe, but it will bear the price tag of $299 only.

A Canada based company by the name of InteraXon created a thought-controlled lighting installation to debut alongside the Winter Olympics in Canada. The installation which lets the users control lighting by their brainwaves alone has been installed at three major landmarks that include Toronto’s CN Tower, Ottawa’s Parliament Buildings and Niagara Falls. The locations have been installed with two chairs and as many headsets, by wearing which the user's thoughts are transferred as commands to the site they are viewing and thus bring about a required change in the lighting display.

Developed about two years ago, brain-powered prosthetic arms are now being used by an Australian, Christian Kandlbauer to drive a modified car. The 18-year-old Christian lost both is arms in an electricity accident, and had never driven a car thereafter. Now, thanks to these new prosthetics that connect the remaining nerves at the site of amputation and to automaker Paravan, that has modified a car to accommodate the prosthetics, he can drive with the power of the mind.