Expensive Peripherals #1

[Scrobbs]

I've just bought one of these. For those who haven't followed the link yet, it is a Neural Impulse Actuator. Basically a brain/computer interface - it looked ace in the reviews, and intruiged me a great deal - and the fact that it does actually work too.

It can detect eye movement, upper facial muscle movement, but more importantly alpha and beta brainwaves.

Apparently it was dispatched yesterday!

Will it prove to be a foolish and wasteful investment? Watch this space

[Nachimir]

I am looking forward to this

Will there be videos?

[Cigol]

...

I know we've made great strides in this area but I really wasn't expecting someone to say they've gone out and bought some brain control interface for at least another ten or twenty years, lol.

We also felt that the NIA was quite tiring to use, especially at the beginning. When just starting, we had to make large exaggerated movements to trigger the NIA's sensors. This quickly tired us out and we felt fatigued after only 20 minutes of gameplay.

Reading the review it sounds like a lot of hard work, but let us know how it goes as in theory it sounds ace.

The NIA doesn't come with any documentation on how to learn to use the Brainfngers and we think we know why. There is simply no way to explain how it is done, you must simply learn it from experience. Overall, the best advice we have for learning how to use Brainfingers is to simply play with them in a game.

"Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."

[ThunderPeel2001]

The review in PC Format was basically, "It works... yikes!".

[toblix]

How awesome if you could one-up all the "I'm psoting thisfrom my iphone!" people with "I AM TYPING THIS USING ONLY THOUGHT".

[Scrobbs]

I'm trying to source a camera.

[Nick]

Had a bit of a research this afternoon and ti be honest, it looks like after a few weeks of practice it could be awesome.

[Cigol]

We haven't heard anything. I hope his brain didn't dissolve.

[Scrobbs]

Sorry, I only got it on thursday after work, then went to a festival on friday. Only played with it for a few hours.

I had to install an old game to test it, because TF2 takes so looooong to load it quickly became tedious - so I went with RTCW.

Few annoyances - if you alt-tab out, the key combination to activate the NIA in game stops working, so you have to basically restart the game. The other main one is that you have to ground yourself to the control box so that the signal drops to a low enough level for calibration in order to use it; the easiest way I've found is to put it against your stomach while sitting down.

The fun stuff... it really works. I'm having a bit of trouble getting the glance thing to work, but after tweaking the sensitivity and movement, it becomes easier to use. The muscle thing is the easiest to get working initially, and I've found that it detects difference muscle movements well. The way the 'joystick' zones work is quite good, say for instance raising your eyebrows makes the signal level so high, and biting down is a bit higher, so you set the trigger points at the requisite levels, so that raising your eyebrows can make you jump, and biting makes you fire.

All in all pretty interesting so far, hopefully over the course of the next few weeks I will get better control over the glance control so strafing left and right will be less of a chore.

I've also been investigating the company that provided the technology, and on their website (as the system was designed for disabled folks first) there are a few more pointers than OCZ gave on how to make the Alpha and Beta more controllable.

Edited August 10, 2008 by Norfolk'n'Clue

[Cigol]

Sorry, I only got it on thursday, then went to a festival on friday. Only played with it for a few hours.

I had to install an old game to test it, because TF2 takes so looooong to load it quickly became tedious - so I went with RTCW.

Few annoyances - if you alt-tab out, the key combination to activate the NIA in game stops working, so you have to basically restart the game. You have to ground yourself to the control box so that the signal drops to a low enough level to calibration in order to use it, the easiest way I've found is to put it against your stomach while sitting down.

The fun stuff... it really works. I'm having a bit of trouble getting the glance thing to work, but after tweaking the sensitivity and movement, it becomes easier to use. The muscle thing is the easiest to get working initially, and I've found that it detects difference muscle movements well. The way the 'joystick' zones work is quite good, say for instance raising your eyebrows makes the signal level so high, and biting down is a bit higher, so you set the trigger points at the requisite levels, so that raising your eyebrows can make you jump, and biting makes you fire.

All in all pretty interesting so far, hopefully over the course of the next few weeks I will get better control over the glance control so turning left and right will be less of a chore.

I've also been investigating the company that provided the technology, and on their website (as the system was designed for disabled folks first) there are a few more pointers than OCZ gave on how to make the Alpha and Beta more controllable.

Interesting you mention this, I wonder; what kind of control can you realistically have outside of games (just using Windows and Firefox for example).

[Scrobbs]

It's prolly better to point you at the people who came up with the tech that sits inside the OCZ NIA for that info.

http://www.brainfingers.com/cyberlink.htm

Lists all the stuff they use it for. The OCZ interface is a little different, and, more fortunately since that site doesn't seem to have been updated much for a few years, OCZ are bringing drivers out every week it seems at the moment with little bug fixes, adjustments etc. etc.

I've been playing with it for a bit longer this afternoon, and spent some considerable time setting up the sensitivities. I can now run forwards with a tiny amount of jaw pressure (wanted to make this as little as possible to avoid cramp ), and run backwards if I bite (if I stop biting, but keep a little pressure, it tells the game to go back to running forwards, and if you stop that, you stop again). The controls that tell the game how long the key is pressed, how often the key is pressed, the delay on pressing it and what have you are a little confusing to me at present.

The glance function is still eluding me at the moment, and I've had to settle for 'hold-duration' when the glance is triggered, for strafing, so if I glance right I will (at my present setting) strafe right for 0.3 seconds. This isn't ideal perhaps, I imagine there's a better way to do it when I get more familiar with the software.

The brain wave registers are exceedingly hard to influence - with a little bit of effort (the wrong word perhaps - relaxation maybe?) I can make all 6 registers (Alpha 1, 2, 3 and Beta 1, 2, 3) drop to 0 - although not consistently. How to gain control of them, I have no idea, although a PDF from the site above seems to suggest that relaxing back muscles helps with alpha control. Conversely, I tried tensing my core muscles (ie pelvic floor etc) to see if the registers increased, and they did, but in a somewhat haphazard fashion. As I'm actively engaged in practising pilates for my back problem, I might gain finer control, but then again, I might not. I've been looking around the web, and alpha tend to be associated with relaxation and beta with alertness and concentration. To actually gain control over each regsiter in turn (and therefore be able to use then to consistently repeat a particular action in the game) will be really tough I think.

The list of ways you describe the controls to the game mentioned above are:

Single

Dwell-Single

Hold

Hold-Duration*

Dwell-Hold

Dwell-Hold-Duration*

Repeat-Single

Repeat-Hold

Repeat-Duration*

Dwell-Repeat-Duration*

Dwell-Repeat-Single

Dwell-Repeat-Hold

Toggle On/Off

Dwell-Toggle

Dwell is the time the signal is delayed before being passed to the game.

*Only available on 'glance' settings.

Edited August 10, 2008 by Norfolk'n'Clue