Paul Raven @ 09-07-2008
Controlling mechanical and electronic devices with nothing but the power of your own thoughts is a science fiction trope almost as old as the genre itself, and like many other tropes it’s edging towards plausibility at quite a speed. [image by mize2oo5]
Futurismic has mentioned brain-computer interfaces a few times before, and the essential framework of the technology is fairly well established. However, the high costs involved mean that beyond research and rehabilitation there aren’t many truly practical applications right now.
But that’s not stopping the researchers thinking big, as in this Popular Mechanics article:
“… the research is showing that the brain can act independently of the body. One day, you could be sitting in an office and controlling a device from across the room—or in another building. And it’s not just flicking a switch. It could be a nanotool that’s moving through a tiny environment, and you can control it and see what it’s seeing.”
So, great news for the prospect of telecommuting - almost all manufacturing jobs could be done from the comfort of your armchair, for example. The flipside being, of course, that it would make offshore outsourcing an even more viable option than it is now. [story via SlashDot]
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Paul Raven @ 27-05-2008
In an effort to deepen the experience of humans interacting with robots, Steve Yohanan has been concentrating on the largely-neglected fifth sense of touch. The Haptic Creature is a robot rabbit that only communicates through a haptic interface - in other words, it responds to touch with movement. [image borrowed from NewScientist article]
Yohanan and others believe that haptics are a faster route to creating an emotional response … I wonder if the guys at Ai Robotics have included haptics in their soon-to-be-launched “Perfect Woman” robots?
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Paul Raven @ 13-05-2008
Did you ever play Missile Command in the arcades when you were a kid? I’ll bet you thought (more than once) “man, how awesome would it be if you could just touch the screen instead of using that trackball!”
Steve Mason evidently thought so, and has taken advantage of multi-touch technology to make a wall-sized version for the serious win:
I know we don’t do many gadget posts at Futurismic these days, but I couldn’t let that one pass by. 
[vid via Engadget]
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Jeremy Eades @ 27-02-2008
I don’t know about you, but I’ve adapted well to the standard keyboard/mouse computer interface. I started as a child with DOS and Win 3.1. Touch-typing on various-languages’ keyboards are no problem and my twitch response works well in Team Fortress 2.
Unfortunately, this ability honed over decades may soon be obsolete, what with some new technologies on demonstration at the Game Developer’s Conference recently. Specifically, eye-tracking hardware from EyeTech that is currently available (for several thousand dollars) allows the disabled to simply look at a place on the screen and the cursor goes there. It’s a rather expensive way to reduce repetitive stress injury, but according to the journalist trying it out, it makes games almost too easy.
We’ve written before about touchless interfaces, and there’s a promising brainwave-powered interface on the horizon too. The future’s bright for new ways to handle digital interactions. Check out the rest of the Ars Technica piece for some other interesting ways to interface reality and digital gaming.
(photo from flickr user F1RSTBORN)
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Paul Raven @ 13-11-2007
Michael Anissimov takes a look at haptics - the name for interfaces based on the sense of touch. Largely ignored so far in favour of video and audio (which are much simpler and cheaper to implement), haptic technology is the logical next step in immersive virtual experiences; a haptic suit could simulate real tactile contact in a virtual world. [Image borrowed from Sensory Motor Performance Program]
As Michael points out, the sex industry will be one of the first to take up on this technology (as it did with video, and the internet itself), but once the price drops to within the reach of the average consumer, your home games console will support haptics, as well as most MMOs. Meanwhile, the development will probably be driven by potential military applications … but I doubt it’ll be long before we’re all getting our Lawnmower Man on.
What would you use haptics for? And where would you draw the line?
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Paul Raven @ 12-10-2007
While it may obviously be some time before this technology becomes widely available to the average consumer, I’m fascinated to see a Japanese team of scientists developing a thought-control interface device that can direct the movement of a Second Life avatar. Something like that could really revolutionize the platform … although given the slightly hysterical media reports of, er, dubious pastimes in the virtual world, I’m sure people will leap to conclusions about why users would want their hands free … [Image by Pathfinder Linden]
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Paul Raven @ 05-09-2007
As someone who started using computers back in the good old days when you had to bash every instruction into the keyboard at the command prompt, I still feel kind of grateful for the revolutionary interface change that the now-standard mouse brought with it. But after a few hours trawling the web, my right hand starts telling me that there has to be a better way. And there is, thanks to a bunch of boffins from Stanford University who’ve developed a system that allows you to replicate the functions of a mouse interface using a few keyboard hotkeys and the motion of your eyeballs.
What a great cover-up for hangovers in the workplace that will be - “Your eyes are bloodshot - heavy night out?” “Nah, stayed at home and read a Doctorow novel.” [Image by babygoldfish]
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Michael Anissimov takes a look at haptics - the name for interfaces based on the sense of touch
