An exclusive gaming industry community targeted
to, and designed for Professionals, Businesses
and Students in the sectors and industries
of Gaming, New Media and the Web, all closely
related with it's Business and Industry.
A Rich content driven service including articles,
contributed discussion, news, reviews, networking, downloads,
and debate.
We strive to cater for cultural influencers,
technology decision makers, early adopters and business leaders in the gaming industry.
A medium to share your or contribute your ideas,
experiences, questions and point of view or network
with other colleagues here at iVirtua Community.
The $299 headest will read facial expressions and simple thoughts such as 'lift' or 'drop' to control in-game actions
A headset which reads electrical impulses in the brain will allow gamers tointeract with virtual worlds merely by 'thinking and feeling'.
The Epoc headset - which is due to go on sale later this year - works byreading a player's facial expressions as well as basic thoughts, such as'lift' or 'drop', and transferring them to their character in the game.
For instance if a player winks, smiles or grimaces while wearing the device,similar expressions would be seen on the person's character - or avatar - inthe game. Basic emotions, such as happiness, can also be detected, thecompany which makes the headset said.
The headset, which has been developed by the San Fransisco-based firm Emotiv,relies on a technology known as non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG),which reads neural activity within the brain.
TimesOnline wrote:
So far, the headset can detect more than 30 different expressions, actions andemotions, including smiling, winking, raised eyebrows, laugter and shock. Itcan also pick up more basic emotions such as excitement and frustration, and- perhaps the most ingenious application - can command a character toperform an action merely by the player thinking of it.
Among the actions it understands are push, pull, lift, drop, and rotate.
"We've created a brain computer interface that reads electrical impulsesin the brain and translates them into commands that a video game can acceptand control the game dynamically," Ms Le told the BBC.
The Epoc, which connects with all the gaming consoles as well as PC, attachesto a player's head at 16 sensor points, and has a wireless capability aswell as a gyroscope, which measures movement much in the manner ofNintendo's Wii handset. It will cost $299 (£153).
Techniques which measure the activity of the brain's 100 billion or so nervecells date back nearly a century, but it is only since the 1970s that EEGhas been used to enable a person to communicate with a computer using theirbrain.
Emotiv said its headset would be the first consumer-focused EEG device to beused for gaming. "It doesn't require a large net of electrodes, or atechnician to calibrate or operate it - and it doesn't cost tens ofthousands of dollars," Ms Le said.
The company is also working with the likes of IBM to develop businessapplications for the technology.
Digg Topic
Tag topic on On del.icio.us
Technorati Search
Post to Slashdot
