I’ve been looking at the Developer Nanoheadset ($500) by Emotiv and will likely be purchasing one to fiddle with. My first idea was to add a plugin to 0.9.0 so that we can have a Brain Input, much like the keyboard and mouse input dialogs now. You could map some kind of brain activity, such as thinking of all windows to be gone, to the show desktop functionality.
Another idea I’ve had is to monitor the sensor data while an application is active, possibly quantifying them by other data like CPU activity and input activity, and use this to develop patterns and map them to functionality. An example would be while using Eclipse and wanting documentation, opening a Javadoc page.
Will it work for Linux? Yes! (Read updates below!)
There is another feature that allows for manipulation of objects on screen, which is what I’ve seen demoed via Fora. It may be possible to move windows with your mind!
Update: This is NOT an April Fools joke! There was some speculation after the story was put on OMG! Ubuntu!
Update: I spoke with Geoff with Emotiv about the headset to discuss some questions I had about the software integration, Linux support, and hardware features. He did address my concern and inform me the headset has an SDK for Linux is being developed, so the Epoc headet will support Linux! He briefly described some of the features available and the Linux adapter, which is basically a port from the Windows driver in terms of behavior. He also told me they have mouse support in it, as well as a 2-axis gyroscope, which will integrate great with Compiz Head Tracking!
Thats insane… nice!!!
Article has been updated with the video
could you please share the link to the TED video???
I updated the article, it's actually a Fora video I think. (Sorry)
Do it!
This is probably going to be much more difficult then you think. From what I've seen of it it doesn't need drivers because they are the sole supplier of software for it. I don't think it emulates any standard HID and even if it does you will still need to configure it from windows. However if you are serious about this you should work on integrating the openEEG project with compiz and maybe some HID drivers. They have interface software that I believe could show similar results to what you've seen in the video. You would of cuarse need to create drivers that allow it to interface with neuroserver but odds are good it's using hardware similar to a usb soundcard.
Emotiv got back to me, and their SDK looks rather straight forward. I'll share more details when I get them.
They are working on Linux support already, so that might be fruitful.
I updated the article with some information on Linux support.
Also check out the headset at http://neurosky.com/
I've developed for one before and the device shows up as a standard serial port over bluetooth. Their API consisted solely of a parser for their data stream. In addition, raw value can be read directly from the ADC (after their post-processing). The signal is only one dimensional but you are able to extract levels of Alpha, Beta, Delta and Theta waves. In addition they have their own process 'Attention' and 'Meditation' values which actually work out quite nice.
Check it out.
Any news about this great project?