'Mind Gaming' Could Enter Market This Year

An anonymous reader writes "In an adapted version of the Harry Potter video game, players lift boulders and throw lightning bolts using only their minds. Just as physical movement changed the interface of gaming with Nintendo's Wii, the power of the mind may be the next big thing in video games. And it may come soon. Emotiv, a company based in San Francisco, says its mind-control headsets will be on shelves later this year, along with a host of novel "biofeedback" games developed by its partners. Several other companies — including EmSense in Monterey, California; NeuroSky in San Jose, California; and Hitachi in Tokyo — are also developing technology to detect players brainwaves and use them in next-gen video games."

Lawsuits

This tech sounds like a lot of fun, but I am imagining that the parents of the first kid to blow a gasket trying the brain-wave equivalent of button-mashing are going to be able to bring some interesting court action.

Re:

Have you seen Scanners? (Joke)

I don't know what players will be required to 'do' when using this device, but if it's different to normal gaming, normal rules will not apply.

Regardless, I wasn't necessarily saying that the headset will cause any problems,

The Power Glove seemed cool too

Not all new input devices will meet with success. There was a lot of hype surrounding the release of Nintendo's Power Glove, and in the end it was used for only a few games and then abandoned.

Re:The Power Glove seemed cool too

There was a lot of hype surrounding the release of Nintendo's Power Glove, and in the end it was used for only a few games and then abandoned.

True. However, it wasn't that the new interface that made the Power Glove fail but rather the fact it didn't work. I had gotten one as a kid and the thing never worked and was very cumbersome to program. The was most likley due to the fact it was of poor quality and was more of a gimmick than actually being a well designed product.

The same fate happened for the VR Boy. It was basically an LED that was on a spinning mirror. Great idea but the worst possible implementation ever.

I personally think the technology was not ready for either back in the 90s. However, they kind of got it right with the Wii remote and maybe someday LED technology will allow VR glasses that don't weigh 20lbs and give you a head ache after an hour of use.

Re:The Power Glove seemed cool too

Given that it's a Harry Potter game, it would make much more sense to have the spells be voiceactivated, where the actual spells used in the books would allow you to levitate objects, disarm opponents, etc. Voice recognition software has really matured in the past 10 years, and a lot of gamers already have microphones, so the pieces are already there, they'd just have to be assembled. Plus, with the motion detection in the Wii, you could combine the words of the spell with some sort of motion. This would (a) be totally awesome, and (b) be so close to witchcraft, it would drive the fundamentalists insane, which would also be awesome.

I would bet that the next big thing, after motion-sensitive controllers, is going to be voice recognition. Imagine you're playing as Captain Kirk, and you can issue commands like "Ahead full impulse power!", "Fire photon torpedoes", or even, during an away mission to some forgotten planet, "Beam me up, Scotty!". I'm not even a huge Star Trek fan or anything, but I think that would be pretty cool.

Or what about Half-Life 2: what if you could issue commands for your forces, like "medic!" "cover me!" or "attack that strider!" and your squad would actually do something useful, instead of just complain and get shot (which is about the limits of their current capabilities)? And how much easier would it be to control your units in StarCraft, if you could just say "[unit name], [action]", for instance, "Wraiths, cloak", "tanks, seige mode", or "marines, attack carrier"?

Re:The Power Glove seemed cool too

The best thing about voice recognition for gaming is the same thing that makes it good for teaching languages. The really tricky part about voice recognition is being able to tell that slightly different pronunciations of the same word are, in fact, the same. With something like a Harry Potter game, this isn't an issue because the set of words is relatively small and you actually want poor pronunciation to have negative effects. If you don't enunciate the spell correctly, then you should singe your (avatar's) eyebrows.

In other games, voice recognition is best for vague commands. If you want a specific tank to go to a specific location, then a point and click interface is best. If you want all tanks of a specific category to adopt some general behaviour then a voice interface can be better. Things like fire at will or return fire behaviour in Total Annihilation were really fiddly to set, but just saying 'fleet, fire at will' would have been a lot faster.

Re:The Power Glove seemed cool too

I was playing phantom hourglass on a jet while traveling for work. I was really enjoying the game until I got stuck at this part where I was supposed to actually yell out. I didn't want to do that cause the people around me were sleeping and I'd feel like a weirdo talking to my DS. I ended up playing something else the rest of the flight (thank god for R4)

Re:The Power Glove seemed cool too

Blowing into the microphone works just as well.

Re:The Power Glove seemed cool too

I have to agree somewhat. About 10 years ago a company released a device called MotionWare that would electronically make your inner ear feel motion, without any visual or mechanical trickery; the ultimate gamer VR device. I got a developer's version while waiting on them to pitch the idea to places like Logitec, etc. but even though it worked fairly well, there were no takers and so now I'm stuck with a $1000+ prototype.

Re:The Power Glove seemed cool too

Agreed, screw the powerglove, roll on Coneheads/Demolition Man style mind-fuckery.

Slashdotters may actually find themselves in the forefront of a sexual revolution, imagine-

The hot chick from the flat above asking if you can come round and fix her BSOD'd Love Helm (tm).
Torrents of the outputs from said Helms floating around on The Pirate Bay.
Spurned ex-boyfriends of Hollywood starlets leaking recordings of the signals, rather than plain old homebrew porno.

Oh, the possibilities. Gotta go - ah - lie down...

In Soviet Russia..

"mind-control headsets" do exatcly what the name implies.

Couch potatoes unit!

I can see this going two ways:

1) They make a complete interface that allows the gamer to sit on the couch and do nothing physical when he/she is playing the game.

2) They make this interface work in conjunction with other body movement - like maybe adding it to the Wii games like Avatar. You'd actually have to move and think the right things to get the character on screen to do what you want.

The former will make even bigger couch potatoes and the latter will make people even more active while gaming.

I personally would choose the latter if given the choice.

Great workout.....

2) They make this interface work in conjunction with other body movement - like maybe adding it to the Wii games like Avatar. You'd actually have to move and think the right things to get the character on screen to do what you want.

I always wanted a martial arts game where you would wear gloves and boots and fight a computer guy. it wouldn't be the same as sparring with a real opponent (3D, depth perception, actually getting hit, etc...) but it sure would be a great and fun workout - maybe even helping with timing.

Just keep them away from me.

They make this interface work in conjunction with other body movement

I just hope to hell that nobody ever interfaces one of these to a cell phone. The bluetooth headset zombies are quite bad enough, thank you.

Translation

'Mind Gaming' will be this year's vaporware buzzword.

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'Mind Gaming' will be this year's vaporware buzzword.

Hardly, OCZ has already released their neural impulse actuator, which allows gamers to map neural impulses to keys that would be used in gameplay. (ie. WADS) It's not vaporware, it's already here and on shelves (or will be very shortly.)

http://www.ocz [ocztechnology.com]

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I'm sorry to say this, but none of these will work. The OCZ version and every other version that is coming out anytime soon (i.e. next 10 years or more) will make the power glove look good. The sophistication we have in recording and analyzing EEG is no

Question:

Does the average kid gamer have enough brain power to set off the sensor?
I mean, how many madden players are there who buy the same game 49 times?

Mind Games?

This isn't good... girls will start beating us at video games on a regular basis.

Remember the ST:TNG episode...

The one where everybody on the Enterprise became addicted to that game that came with a headset and you controlled with your mind? Everybody became addicted to the thing and went all nutzo. Then Wil Wheaton saved the day by making out with Ashley Judd.

I would totally get this if I got to make out with a hot chick in a starfleet uniform.

Wearable computing and the return of hats.

This makes me think of two things in particular; wearable computing and the return of hats.

I would sincerely like to be able to have a computer display in my glasses that I could view while walking around or standing in line.. at the very least providing something akin to a wearable Garmin gps device. The problem in my daydream has always been; how do I control the silly thing? How am I going to type? Mini keyboards like that on my phone are fine for short messages, but unsuited to any sort of real industrial typing and completely useless if I have to be walking or driving at the same time.

I would be willing to put a great deal of effort into learning how to type with my mind fluently.

However, wearing something like this on my head would make me look kind of silly in the business world. If an interface like this really takes off it could help ignite a resurgence of hats. I read an article recently revolving around how fifty years ago men of any class were rarely out and about without some form of stylish hat. As time passed this trend ended and now all we're left with is casual baseball caps. I've always liked a good fedora, and if they became fashionable to use as a mind interface cover then I could safely wear one in public without looking demented.

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Voice control might be just the ticket, if we don't actually have to use our voice [slashdot.org].

read carefully

This is what they say:

Using a combination of EEGs (which reveal alpha waves that signify calmness), EMGs (which measure muscle movement), and ECGs and GSR (which measure heart rate and sweating), developers hope to create a picture of a players mental and physical state. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), which monitors changes in blood oxygenation, could also be incorporated since it overcomes some of the interference problems with EEGs.

The only component of those measurements that could actually be used for real-time game control is the EMG, that is, measuring the activation of muscles. That may make for interesting games, but it has nothing to do with "mind reading".

Don't believe the hype

I did a final project on the limits of EEG (electroencephalography, or getting-signals-using-electrodes-on-scalp, which is what this is) for a neurotechnology seminar last semester, and compared my findings to the claims made by Emotiv. The result: some of the things they claim this device can do are actually impossible and always will be, and others are extremely unlikely unless they've made some seriously groundbreaking discoveries. (Mediocre two-dimensional movement, for example, has been generated by EEG, but it'd be impossible with their headset unless they have some sick new algorithms.) The professor of the same course actually met with the president of Emotiv, who failed to demonstrate that the device could do anything.

Last I checked, their marketing videos are ridiculously flashy while showing no real control capability. My belief: EEG headsets like these, at best, will be controllable only by facial muscles (which completely overshadow the electrical potential generated by the brain) and by alpha rhythm amplitude, a very slow control signal demonstrated in "BrainBall", which was posted to slashdot some time earlier. At worst these headsets will be near-worthless devices, their sales supported entirely by false promises and media hype.

Mind Games Olympics

I already spent years in brutal mind games competitions, while dating girls. I retired with the gold medal when I married my wife.

I thought the entire appeal of online porn is that it's "victory" without the mind games, though its ultimate dissatisfaction is because it's really just a single-player mind game anyway.