All Your Thoughts, Are Belong to Us!

It started with my discovery of the “Imagination Board!” – a mind controlled skateboard.

This made me ask: If they can mind control a skateboard, what else is being mind-controlled?

The most common interface device I’ve found so far is the EPOC neuroheadset. Retailing at $299, I’m more than a little blown away. I mean, seriously, did any of us think mind-controlled skateboards, phones, or video games? I didn’t, and I’m a complete nutter for sci-fi!

Like any new interface technology worth the time, the EPOC neuroheadset has a development community and SDK (software development kit). It takes a village, right? I won’t lie though, most of the posts I saw in there are completely over my head.

Here’s a brief list of some of the applications developed (or in development) for use with the EPOC neuroheadset:

• StoneHenge

The object of the game is to develop your Emotiv EPOC skills and rebuild Stonehenge, moving the giant triliths to reconstruct the monument. Your mission is to put triliths in the east, west, south, north of the sacred site, and finally to raise the ancient temple which was buried in the middle of the stone circle.

• NeuroVault

A typical NeuroVault task, a game developer would use NeuroVault to capture a gamer putting a new game through its paces.

Afterwards, they could playback synchronized video, audio and EEG data, and see immediately which events in the game excited the player, or were frustrating, challenging or just downright boring. Because NeuroVault lets you review the data at your leisure, its very easy to visualize the exact events which trigger changes in emotional state.

•  Board of Imagination (in development)

After the reading of many charts, the application of copious amounts of saline, and not just a little bit of ‘OH YIKES,’ Chaotic Moon Labs is proud to introduce not the Board of Awesomeness 2.0, but rather the Board of Imagination. Using the same drive system and Samsung-built brains as the Board of Awesomeness, this new board is operated solely on the power of your imagination, no controller here. “LOOK, MA: NO HANDS!”

• NeuroPhone (in development)

A new device from Dartmouth College lets users select and dial a contact’s phone number just by thinking about it.