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EDS' Next Big Thing Blog: Read and Respond to What the EDS Fellows Say About Technology

Read and respond to what the EDS Fellows have to say about the future of technology on EDS' Next Big Thing Blog on eds.com.

Mind control interface

by Charlie Bess

Kas Kasravi (another EDS Fellow) pointed me to a new product coming in the fall, that was in the area of one of my predictions for 2008. The Emotiv Epoc is a device that claims to be able to use brain activity to control games... I'm sure this will be a case where if effective the number of uses will expand far beyond game play. The use by stroke patients and others who have lost movement or limbs seem clear.

There seem to be more stories all the time about trying to tap into the brain, like this one on pulling images out of brainwaves.

Just as long as it has a read only interface, I'm too susceptible to playing games already without any additional encouragement. ;-)

Published Monday, March 10, 2008 6:31 PM

Filed under: Vision, Emerging Technologies, Healthcare

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Comments

Posted by Patrick Simpson Monday, March 10, 2008 8:09 PM

Interesting. Maybe the "Wii 2.0" or "3.0" will feature this kind of technology.

Posted by Robert Forster, M.D. Sunday, May 18, 2008 8:05 PM

Mr. Bess's comment re: use of "Epoc.. seems clear" because the pathways for Epoc to work are in fact or gone in stroke or victims of limb loses. There is no comparison and certainly none that is obvious. I assume Mr. Bess and Mr. Kasravi are not physiologists nor physicians in that it is obvious that this is not the area for business development. A more appropriate example is where mere thoughts could be actualized with an intact brain to motor function system, e.g., ordinance (military) control with thought commands. Practical use for significant number of Americans will be decades in the future and it's value is questionable given the unit cost in research and development. Exciting innovative technology is rarely of high intrinsic value --especially when applied to population healthcare. I would choose a non healthcare "obvious" example for the value of Epoc since value and quality are so hard to predict and measure in healthcare.