The Ultimate Gaming Station - A Brain Computer Interface

As we smoothly transition into the era of wearable technology, the next leap towards the ultimate game station has just been announced by Australian company Emotiv Systems.

Emotiv recently unveiled at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, a helmet gaming station that will replace joysticks and buttons redundant with thoughts and emotions.

Dubbed Project Epoc, the gaming system can "move objects based on a gamer's thoughts, reflect facial expressions, and respond to the excitement or calm the gamer mentally exerts", the company said.

It works using sensors in the helmet to recognise the brains electrical signals. The system software then analyzes these signals for intent before wirelessly relaying that intent to a receiver plugged into the USB port of a game console or PC.

Its capability improves in a similar manner as with voice recognition, using the learning curve to improve its understanding of the players thinking. The players skill level in visualizing its intention contributes to the outcomes.

The system works best with children and those open to believing in their capability to manipulate the virtual world with their brain. In other words, the more imaginative you are the better the system responds. Children think about their actions in big, bold, colorful terms, and the system seems to recognise their intentions easier.

Most adults are less likely to fool their brains into believing anything that their defining logic doesnt believe in. It therefore takes adults a lot more practice to learn how to use the system.

Who knows, as we move closer to a world of virtual reality, maybe the future is that the children go to work and the parents stay home!

Emotiv expect the product, along with SDK's, will be available to market in 2008.

About Emotiv: Emotiv, was founded in 2003. One of its four cofounders is Allan Snyder, director of The Centre for the Mind, a joint venture of the Australian National University and the University of Sydney.

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