
Toys that detect brainwaves - nebula
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2009/04/22/ST2009042204139.html
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biohacker42
Biofeedback has been used in medicine on and off again for a while. It's hard
to learn how to control processes in your body for which you have no feedback.
But if you're hooked up to a machine which gives you feedback you can learn to
control things we usually think of as beyond our will. You can learn to
control your heartbeat at will. Migraine sufferers can learn to draw blood
into their hands and relieve the migraine symptoms. But it's not clear exactly
what's relieving the symptoms, the type of brain activity necessary to control
blood flow or the blood flow or both or perhaps neither. That among other
things is why it's not established medical practice.

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pbz
Where can I buy this stuff? When's it going to be out? Any hardware out there
that we could connect with the computer and program ourselves?

(this is pretty neat: [http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/09/video-mattel-mind-
flex-ha...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/09/video-mattel-mind-flex-hands-
and-heads-on/))

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mitko
I hope there is a way to program it to do different tasks- for example move
the mouse on the screen or type text. Such tasks are not that hard some ML
might be able to figure out which signals respond to which intentions per
person.

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jcl
I would have killed for one of these when I was a kid.

But I wonder what health effects, if any, these devices will have? It sounds
like the manufacturers will imply beneficial effects, much like they do with
the Brain Age games -- despite little evidence for either. We really have no
idea what long-term effects these devices will have, especially for children.

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dfranke
I'd like to hear an opinion from a developmental psychologist about what
something like this could do to infants. Basic physical intuition -- things
fall when you drop them, things persist when they leave your line of sight,
etc. -- is learned, not innate. I can imagine a kid getting really screwed up
if "things move when I imagine them moving" got integrated into his world
model during this period.

Then again, perhaps the day will come where this stuff is so ubiquitous that
you _need_ to absorb it during the critical period in order to get by :-)

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rabidsnail
<http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/>

For the hackers.

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ericb
Anyone care to daydream about the possibilities and consequences as this
becomes ubiquitous and evolves?

Building thermostats decide temperature using a hedonistic utilitarian
function? Waiting room TV's that find the best channel for the people in the
room on their own? Hacker news karma happens automatically via your mind-over-
matter device?

MOM becomes the abbreviation du jour as mind over matter is too wordy, so mom
domain names get more popular.

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rabidsnail
We need a cheap eeg usb device with an online game store of mind games. Maybe
come out with an eeg for the wii and let wiiware titles use it.

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anigbrowl
No, what we need is a cheap EEG device that exposes its raw data and comes
with a basic API. A closed system will live or die on the quality of the
release software. An open one will be slower to take off, but see much broader
use.

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paulgb
I wonder how hackable these toys will be. If it is possible to get the raw
data into a computer, I definitely want one.

