
A Game You Can Control with Your Mind - carlchenet
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/27/technology/thought-control-virtual-reality.html
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hprotagonist
to be completely pedantic, i already control all games i play with my mind...

more seriously, i worked on a brain-computer interface (BCI) system a few
years ago that was supposed to do directional control of a cursor from scalp
EEG recordings. A $90 eye tracker worked an order of magnitude better and
three orders faster.

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kortex
I've spent a lot of time working with EEG and pulling my hair out over garbage
SNR, finnicky setups, and artifacts galore.

I don't understand why so many folks try to go the route of using EEG as
mouse/keyboard/generic HID for the masses, when (ignoring para/quadraplegics)
most humans have no problem with computer input. There are tons of
applications where the EEG can be used for what it's (sorta) good at:
attentional and mood states, which, in the time of distraction firehose, seems
like it would have a use case. But no, we have to make yet another pick-up-a-
virtual-object interface.

(not to imply X-aplegics are not worthy of tech. it's just that as mentioned
above, eye tracking is WAY more robust)

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hprotagonist
Yup. IN fact, our application was locked-in patients. SSVEP BCI "works", but
only if you can foveate on the target, which means you can move your eyes,
which means you should use an eye tracker.

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yoz-y
There are quite a lot of papers that show you can actually modulate SSVEP
response even without eye movement. Their protocol was quite fascinating, they
used a swarm of targets with four frequencies all intermingled. You had
vertical and horizontal (short) lines which were either blue or red. One would
control the system by concentrating on blue horizontal stripes for example. Of
course the throughput was quite low even for a BCI. I think more research in
this vein could reveal some interesting possibilities.

~~~
hprotagonist
You can. In our experience, we were unable to get reliable performance with
SSVEP or m-sequences with targets in the periphery, though - the subject had
to be foveating on the target to get a good response.

Given that constraint, an eye tracker would be just as applicable to the
patient population, so SSVEP was a bag of disadvantages with no obvious
upside.

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SilasX
Interesting! I was big on this stuff seven years ago, when I found a "Star
Wars Force Training" toy [1] -- you put the brain wave sensor on, which passes
a signal that sets the strength of a fan that's blowing upward on a ball in a
tube, and therefore its height. So it makes a neat brain-ball-height link.
Unfortunately, it was really unreliable -- only for brief periods could I (or
anyone) consistently set the height.

I also bought the OCZ Neural Impulse Actuator that you could use as a PC
peripheral and it could detect alpha/beta brains waves as well as tension and
eye movement, but which I really only found reliable for the last two. (You
control tension by "gritting your teeth".)

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Science-Force-
Trainer/dp/B0...](https://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Science-Force-
Trainer/dp/B001UZHASY)

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KGIII
I have long since offered to volunteer myself to be able to have a direct
brain interface with a computer and the Internet. I'll even shave my hair and
let them install a wireless nub on the back of my head.

In my imagination, this means everything from authoring my own custom programs
to thwarting hackers using the power of my mind.

I'm pretty sure this would be just about the most awesome thing ever created.
I'd be surfing at brain-speed and able to access all information that is out
there.

Trivially related: I'd want an ad blocking mechanism, but I might be able to
just will it into place.

Yes, I'd be willing to take the risks if someone had a reasonable plan to
trial this.

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netzone
You'd still have to deal with connecting to servers and grabbing whatever data
you need. Then you'd have to deal with the delays, which might not be so fun.

~~~
KGIII
I am not scared. I will take thus tech, as soon as they ask for volunteers.

I've been onlne for a long time. I'd happily take these risks. I'd risk death,
with nary a question asked. I will sign up today, for such a tech.

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adrianN
Cheap EEGs have interesting applications for the quantified-self people. For
example, Gwern uses a similar device to get data about their sleep pattern.

> [https://www.gwern.net/Zeo](https://www.gwern.net/Zeo)

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nimchimpsky
this has been around for a few years,
[https://www.emotiv.com/](https://www.emotiv.com/) and never really got any
good.

sceptical to say the least.

You just don't get enough resolution via eegs.

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caseymarquis
What I really want is a highly sensitive position tracking set of breathable
gloves, probably with some mild electric feedback. We have have loads of
sensitivity and control in our hands. Why bother to dangerously wire to the
brain when you can input/output via the hands? There would be a learning
curve, but if it's possible to read braille and use sign language, I'd think
it's possible to relay information to the hand via electric stimulus and from
the hand by tracking movement.

~~~
adrianN
Wiring stuff directly to the brain has the nice side effect of improving the
tools we use to understand how the brain works. It also helps us develop
better prostheses (for example for people who lost their hands).

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Tepix
Would interpreting the EEG in terms of commands given work more reliably if
there were more sensors? If so, why are there so few sensors? If not, why not?

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yoz-y
It mostly depends on what paradigm you are using. They seem to use the P300
response (your brain's response to an "anticipated surprise") which indeed
benefits quite a lot from additional sensors because the response can be found
all over the brain. If they were using motor imagery then you only need
electrodes on the sensory-motor cortex.

First concern is cost, additional sensors of good quality are expensive (for
example, a single g.Tec dry electrode costs about 100 euros). If you use gel
electrodes (which are vastly superior to dry electrodes) then you add
preparation time.

One of the biggest hurdles of EEG for games is practicality. People were
annoyed when they had to spend a few seconds calibrating their Kinect, now
imagine you would have to spend 5-15 minutes donning and calibrating the
system each time you wished to play.

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AgnesRules
For real, this is one step before full VR reality and loss of humanity. Once
people will have a choice between living there life and going full fantasy-mod
of there choice there will be problems. It's nice that tech. goes forward, but
we should step gently. Otherwise ''Roy: A Life Well Lived'' arcades will pop
up everywhere.

~~~
no1youknowz
This is one argument as to why we don't see any ET life.

Once they reach a sufficient level of technology, instead of going outward,
they go inward. Creating Matrioshka Brains and living in virtual worlds.

Here's a video by the excellent Isaac Arthur:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef-
mxjYkllw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef-mxjYkllw)

Another one by Joe Scott:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJOKb1_aBM0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EJOKb1_aBM0)

If it indeed turns out that we are living in a simulation, then I guess the
question then begs. Why not live in a simulation of your own rules and making?
What would be so wrong with that?

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honestoHeminway
living in constant subtile fear of the janitor who trips over cables also know
as g.o.d.

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efoto
If you want to experiment with an EEG device, that works look at Muse. They
emphasize meditation feedback, but you can access your EEG raw data.

[http://www.choosemuse.com/research/](http://www.choosemuse.com/research/)

~~~
dbish
I've been wanting to get one to try some ideas out, but trying to decide if
the $200 is worth it. Do you have a muse? What do you use it for?

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efoto
I got one on sale for $150. Had some plans for it, but so far I've only only
used it for it's primary purpose: neurofeedback during meditation.

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LoSboccacc
next generation will love this, while us old fart will scream about the
ethical issues of recording and uploading brain scans to the private
advertisement companies that'll run billboard in the virtual worlds...

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bluetwo
Get off my mind lawn!

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xyrnoble
I realize you were joking but "get of my lawn" is normally something that the
rich say to the poor. In this situation it's the opposite. Also, I'm young
enough to be in the "next generation" and, at least in my case, the GP is
wrong. The previous generation assumes they can get lost in the noise. They
imagine all our data flowing into a human machine for processing. They don't
understand the power of machine learning and fail to grasp the degree to which
this data will increasingly determine outcomes in their individual lives.

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hueving
>I realize you were joking but "get of my lawn" is normally something that the
rich say to the poor.

No it's not. A lawn is a very middle-class thing in the US. It is
stereotypically an older person that spends a bunch of time keeping their lawn
pristine since they have no small children.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_kids_get_off_my_lawn](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_kids_get_off_my_lawn)!

~~~
bluetwo
Exactly. The rich have signs that say "Get off my lawn"... The middle class
have to get off the couch to say it.

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throwawaycanada
I think there was a Star Trek episode about this...

