Pulp Science: Jedi Mind Tricks Impress Chicks
Every single Star Wars fanboy has at one point stared at an object across the room, concentrated really frakkin’ hard, and tried to use the Force to move it. After seeing Luke and Yoda play mind tricks in Dagobah, who wouldn’t want to Force Push?
Alas, if there was only a Jedi training device to help young Padawans cultivate our powers of telekinesis… Wait, there is? And it’s called The Force Trainer? WTF???
The Force Trainer by Uncle Milton uses dry neural sensor technology to read and interpret your brainwaves. The more intense your focus, the more you can control the “Training Sphere” to move up and down the “Training Tower”. There are 15 levels to master – and this puppy even comes with sound effects!
Once you’ve mastered the whole up-and-down-ball-thing and you’re ready for a bigger challenge, you can take on the Mattel MindFlex. In this game, you’re floating a ball through an obstacle course.
The headset sensors measure theta-wave activity in your brain, translate that activity into a signal, and transmit it as a radio frequency to the MindFlex.
If you’re thinking, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, toy balls floating. So what. I play video games.” Then perhaps this is more up your alley:
Yes, that’s right — what was once a prop for Strange Days is now yours for $299 from Emotiv Systems. The EPOC NeuroHeadset allows video game players to control gameplay with their thoughts, expressions and emotions. EPOC ships with game content developed to enable players “to explore all the possibilities of brain-controlled gaming.”
The headpiece has a set of sensors that detect conscious thoughts, expressions and non-conscious emotions based on electrical signals around the brain. The software interprets those brain waves, allowing you to move objects onscreen, make them disappear, and “enabling players to control their in-game character’s expressions or actions and influence gameplay using their thoughts, expressions and emotions.”
“Being able to control a computer with your mind is the ultimate quest of human-machine interaction,” said Nam Do, CEO of Emotiv Systems.
Yeah, and also the goal of every supervillian to grace the comic book page. I totally want one. I would use it for good, of course. Yoda taught me well.
The NeuroHeadset may start as a video gaming device, but plans are already under way to expand it’s uses. Emotiv and IBM announced they are working together to bring the mind control headset to business markets, virtual worlds, and “industries such as enterprise and government.” There it is. The ‘G’ word. I’m sure DARPA would love to use the EPOC on its new robot drones.
Robots controlled by your mind? “Pshaw! Science fiction!”
Yeah? Tell that to the Russian scientists in the following video. This will totally make controlling my forthcoming flying robotic dragon so much easier…
