Split Brain Robotics is an interactive art project by San Francisco artist Kal Spelletich, in which a pair of custom-built robots are able to plug into the left and right brain waves of audience participants. It is pretty wild to watch.
It doesn’t matter if you are more left or right-brained, the robots move and respond to brain signals coming from a willing human volunteer. I’m not sure I would want to be that close to giant robot claws, but to each their own.
If you want to check these robots out in person, Spelletich will be having live performances over three nights on from April 7th through 9th at The Lab in San Francisco. I’m hoping that everyone’s head stays on their neck, and nobody’s retinas get burned by those laser beams.
The Neurocam is the latest invention from Neurowear – the minds behind the Necomimi cat ears and that tail that wags tail that wags based on your thoughts. Though this one seems like a slightly more useful, if not still strange device.
The Neurocam monitors brainwave activity to monitor your interest level in things you’re observing. When it senses that your interest threshold has been hit, it automatically captures images or video. In its current state, the system automatically creates 5-second GIFs of interesting subjects. Here’s a brief video demo of the Neurocam in action:
The device is a headband that holds the users smartphone in a bracket, and it appears that it also has some sort of 90-degree lens adapter for the smartphone so it captures images of whatever you’re looking at.
It’s definitely a novel idea, but all I can imagine is that for most guys, the Neurocam is only going to capture images of cleavage and butts.
So many people end up in car accidents every year. One of the common reasons was because the driver wasn’t paying enough attention. Some apparently can’t let go of their smartphones when they’re on the road, while others are too busy tinkering with their radios, or putting on makeup.
What drivers have to realize is that they have the obligation to be responsible on the road, because it’s not only their lives that they’re putting in harm’s way. Pedestrians, cyclists, other drivers and passengers of other cars are all put in danger because of one reckless driver’s actions.
With this in mind, Emotiv and the Royal Automobile Club of Western Australia came up with what’s probably the world’s first “concentration-dependent” car. It comes with an EPOC neuroheadset developed by Emotiv that connects with custom software that’s installed on the car.
The headset measures the electrical activity in the driver’s brain to gauge their level of concentration. When the driver is distracted, the car automatically slows down to about 9mph to remind the driver to focus on the road. Aside from that, the car will only run at its full capacity when the system determines that the driver is truly concentrating on driving.
Pat Walker, who is RAC’s executive general manager, says: “The impact of inattention is now comparable to the number of deaths and serious injuries caused by speed and drink driving, which are all contributors to Western Australia consistently having the worst fatality rate of any Australian state. Nationally, it is estimated inattention was a factor in 46 percent of fatal crashes.”
I think this is a great idea and has the potential to change how people drive. What do you think?
This 15 foot-tall steel brain sculpture can be controlled by your brain waves. It is called Mens Amplio (that means “mind expanding” in Latin). The interactive brain and head has been embedded with LEDs in the branching structures that represent neurons. Those are made from clear light-diffusing acrylic. The built-in LEDs show a sequence of light displays, which are controlled by an EEG reader placed on your head.
Raspberry Pi and Arduino processors are used to translate your brain waves into light patterns in real time. The huge brain also has flames on the outside, triggered only when the participant can successfully meditate.
It will show up at Burning Man this year, and then they want to take the giant head to schools in California to demonstrate it to kids and get them excited about science. technology and fabrication. The video below shows a 3D rendering of what you the finished sculpture will look like (without the flames.)
The Mens Amplio project is seeking additional funds on Indiegogo, if you want to take part.
Valve has a surprisingly varied staff roster. Mike Ambinder is the company's very own experimental psychologist and he's been outlining some of Valve's work with biofeedback technology, including eye-motion controls for Portal 2 and perspiration-based gaming adjustments on Left 4 Dead. Mentioning these developments at the NeuroGaming Conference last week, Ambinder notes that both are still at an experimental stage, but that "there is potential on both sides of the equation, both for using physiological signals to quantify an emotion [and] what you can do when you incorporate physiological signals into the gameplay itself."
In Left 4 Dead, test subjects had their sweat monitored, with values assigned to how much they were responding to the action. This data was fed back into the game, where designers attempted to modify (and improve) the experience. In a test where players had four minutes to shoot 100 enemies, calmer participants would progress normally, but if they got nervous, the game would speed up and they would have less time to shoot. When it came to the eye-tracking iteration of Portal 2, the new controls apparently worked well, but also necessitated separating aiming and viewpoint to ensure it worked. With Valve already involving itself in wearable computing, it should make both notions easier to accomplish if it decides to bring either experiment to fans. Venture Beat managed to record Ambinder's opening address at the conference -- we've added it after the break.
You know that expression that people say when they’re really good at something? The one that goes, “Oh, I can do [insert action here] in my sleep.”
Most people who make that claim obviously can’t back it up. But there’s an app called Sleep Art that will help you create works of art while you’re asleep – and you don’t have to be a really good artist to begin with. Heck, you don’t even have to know how to draw!
The Sleep Art app uses your iPhone’s gyroscope to monitor your movements and the microphone to listen to your breathing in order to create unique and personalized pieces of art – all while you’re sound asleep.
It was developed by Europe’s Ibis hotel chain, which held a contest where winners slept on a sensor-equipped bed and had a robot artist create special paintings of their sleeping patterns.
You can download the Sleep Art app from the iTunes App Store for free.
Sometimes, songs can speak to you in ways that no mere words ever could. Whether you’re happy, sad, melancholic, in love, or broken-hearted, chances are you’ll find a someone who’s already singing a song about it.
Of course, you’d have to create different playlists and fill them with songs that will satisfy each of your moods. Or you can just put the Mico headphones over your head and let it do your work for you.
Mico is a pair of “mind-reading” (aka biofeedback) headphones that is controlled by your brain waves. It was shown off at South By Southwest, where people got a chance to put it over their heads and have it play songs based on their mood – without them having to choose the song themselves. The headphones work with a custom music app that searches through its library of 100 tracks to play a song that’ll match your current state of mind.
Mico frees the user from having to select songs and artists and allows users to encounter new music just by wearing the device. The device detects brainwaves through the sensor on your forehead. Our app then automatically plays music that fits your mood.
No release dates have been specified yet, although Neurowear says that Mico is coming “in the neat future.”
Can you make your heart beat faster or slower at will? It sounds pretty doable, given how you’ve probably already experienced heart-racing or heart-stopping events in your lifetime. But that happens because of something external, like bad news, a traumatic event, or another stair step where you thought there wasn’t. But the question remains: Can you?
It sounds interesting, and Teko Toys is setting out to make it fun. They’ve created a game system called Pulse that comes with two tiara-like headgear that players are supposed to wear. They’re actually biofeedback monitors which will keep track of your heart rate.
Players choose a card from one of three categories: body, duel, or mind. Each of these contains a challenge involving raising or lowering the number of heartbeats of a certain player per minute. For example, a player might be tasked to raise or lower his heart rate, or do something to speed up the pulse of the other player.
Pulse goes on sale this summer for $50(USD). The system will come with two headbands, the card reader-slash-scoreboard, and the challenge cards.
Nintendo may have left its Vitality Sensor by the wayside, but researchers at Boston Children's Hospital are using heart rate monitoring in a video game to teach children with anger issues how to temper their emotions. Dubbed RAGE (Regulate and Gain Emotional) Control, the game tasks players with blasting hostile spaceships while keeping their heart rate from exceeding a predefined limit. If a gamer's pulse rises above the ceiling, they'll lose the ability to shoot until they can ease their pulse back down. A group of 18 kids who received standard treatments and played the game for five, 15-minute-long sessions had better control of their heart rate and lower anger levels than a group that only used traditional treatments. Currently, a controlled clinical trial of RAGE Control is underway and there are plans to take the concept a step further with toys and games suited for younger children. Look out below for the full press release or tap the second source link for the team's paper in the Journal of Adolescent Psychiatry.
The saying goes that cooler heads will prevail, and that is especially true when it comes down to any kind of gaming. No matter how angry or frustrated you get, you always play better calm. The MyndPlay headset will force you to cool down, and has been use as such to staunch unwanted behavior.
MyndPlay is capable of reading your own state of mind, thanks to monitoring your brain’s electrical signals, and uses this feedback to control a series of computer games. Get too stressed out and you’ll fail. Stay calm, and you win. Manchester City, an English Premiership football team, is going to test headsets similar to these to cool down their hot-tempered players. They hope that this will improve their behavior on and off the football pitch because it requires users to remain calm.
MyndPlay might be able to train people to use their minds more effectively, and not to lose their cool so much. Only time will tell how useful these headsets really are. The MyndPlay Brainband is available now for £129 ($210USD) and the NeuroSky headset will be available soon for £99 ($162 USD).
