Control Games with a Mind Reading Headset

Whilst the Wii’s motion sensitive controllers caused a considerable stir in the console world, this technology could soon be wholly eclipsed by a device that will enable you to control games merely by thinking via a headset that reads your brainwaves.

It might sound like the pure sci-fi, but a concept by the Australian based Emotiv, the Project Epoc wireless headset consists of a series of sensors that are capable of reading and interpreting not only a user’s thoughts but their feeling and emotions in real-time that could subsequently be relayed to a character within a game world who would react accordingly.

Emotiv will be demonstrating its Project Epoc headset at the up and coming 2007 Game Developers Conference to be held in Sam Francisco at which point we would expect to see a flood of reports detailing just how capable this device is. That said, we cannot help but wonder whether the idea of a mind-reading headset to control games could possibly prove viable – after all it would be extremely irritating to find that just before a save point your game character breaks off from an intense fire fight to make a cup of tea or get ‘jiggy’ with the wife thanks to a stray thought crossing your mind.

The Emotiv Development Kit consists of the headset, the Project Epoc processing unit and a series of detection software split into these three distinct components, referred to a ‘suites’, all of which function in real-time:

• The Expressiv Suite – identifies and correlates the user’s facial expressions which can then be accurately mimicked by the user’s gaming character.
• The Affectiv Suite - identifies and correlates the user’s discreet emotional state which, in turn, will define the user’s gaming character’s emotional state.
• The Cognitiv Suite - identifies and correlates the user’s conscious thoughts which will, apparently, allow a gamer to interact with a game world’s environment merely by thinking (i.e., picking up and using objects).

Details are sparse on the official Emotiv website, but we’ll provide this link anyway.