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Technology

Surfing The Net With Brain Waves? 112

Posted by timothy from the leisure-suit-larry dept.
deepfry writes: "Today's Wired News is running a story on the "Attention Trainer." The $899 helmet-type device is supposed to help children improve their concentration by monitoring their brain signals as they play games. Does any one know how this technology works?"
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Surfing The Net With Brain Waves? More

Surfing The Net With Brain Waves?

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  • I guess this gives the term "Dumb Terminal" a whole new meaning!

  • "Same goes for autistic kids... they might start beating their heads against a wall because they're wearing the helmet."

    Actually, the helmet for autistic kids is there for their own protection. Depending on which camp you listen to, there are different reasons for those autistic kids being self-injurious, but nearly all agree that they need to be protected during those episodes.

    Sorry about the off-topic post, but I feel that this issue needed to be addressed.

    Eric Gearman
    --
  • So, how long until they market this to parents, so they can monitor their kids' brainwaves while they surf the net?

    "Uh oh, Ward, there's a Porn Alarm going off, I bet Wally is looking at that naughty web site again!"

    "Thanks, June, I'll be right back. Oh, Wally..."
  • I'd hook up my brain to the internet and immediately be targeted for a denial of service attack.

  • The technology behind this helmet has been available and in use for nearly a decade. The machines that most of the scientific research has been done on are $10,000 units, but when you mass produce something like this, I guess you can get the price down to nearly affordable.

    The games I've seen are usually fairly simplistic but the idea behind the technology is simple -- you can re-train your brain by being properly reinforced. Used in kids with ADD/ADHD, it helps reduce the amount of deficit in attention and also can reduce hyperactivity. There is a fairly decent-sized research base on EEG neurofeedback, and this would appear to be one of the first devices for the "do-it-yourselfer" who wants to help their child over a period of time. (For a good research reference, see "Evaluation of the effectiveness of EEG neurofeedback training for ADHD in a clinical setting as measured by changes in T.O.V.A. scores, behavioral ratings, and WISC--R performance," Biofeedback & Self Regulation Vol 20(1), Mar 1995, 83-99 by Lubar, J.)

    Here's an example [mindfitness.com] of one of the EEG machines they use in clinical and research work.
  • The biggest signal in the vicinity of the head are from eye muscle movement. A quality EEG machine avoids these.

  • Auras (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If you can enter this mind state and still see, you can see the portions of the UV spectrum that auras exist in.

    Sounds nice, but the human eyes do not have cells that would register UV radiation. Furthermore, why don't "auras" show up in UV sensitive photos?

  • The technology is called either neurofeedback or biofeedback (I forget which one); it's based on allowing someone who has trouble concentrating to improve by learning how to control their alpha and beta brain wave patterns.

    Right now there are many centers that have started to use this technology to treat children with ADD; it works like how one learns motor control, since with that one gets visual feedback by seeing one's arm move when directed. The only difference here is that normally one cannot tell what their brain waves are doing while they are doing something; this just maps the brain waves and gives visual and auditory feedback to train someone to control their alpha and beta waves.

    I imagine the video game part has something to do with This old article [slashdot.org], just a guess though.

  • Good idea! Because what we as a society need right now is devices that alter the ways we think being hooked up to the INTERNET .

    Frankly, I get a little upset when people portscan my firewall, much less MY FREAKING' BRAIN.

  • If you have ever heard of an electroencephalogram, you'll know how this works. Basically, there are many points on the head which have weak electrical signals. When these signals are amplified, they show activity of the brain -- when the child is about to have a seizure, they change dramatically and become "jumpy". My theory on how the thing works is this: an IC amplifies the signals, and sends them to an ADC. A microcontroller analyzes the signal and raises a red flag when they start to change. Nothing new, considering that electroencephalographs existed for a LONG time now. The thing certainly doesn't cost anything close to $900 to produce, considering how cheaply you can make an integrated circuit which does everything that needs to be done. The idea of bringing it to the consumer is original, although it's probably inaccurate as hell. The electrodes need to make very close contact with the head (to pick up the electrical signal) which is impossible to do with a simple helmet and is very uncomfortable.
  • The technology itself is something that was discovered years ago but it isn't until recently that advances have made the cost involved low enough to have visiblity for the average consumer. I am a software engineer working with Andrew Junker, the creator of the Cyberlink [brainfingers.com], on just such technology. The device allows me to sit in front of my computer, without the need to literally lift a finger, and move the mouse cursor around and click and open applications and such. You wear a headband with three (3) eletrodes that rest on your forehead that pick up EEG, EOG and EMG signals for analysis and control. The website itself is a little dated since we're adding new features that we have yet to post. Being a cross-platform developer I am rewriting the API to be able to compile on nearly any environment. Even my Palm Pilot. ;P The people that have already benefitted from this technology greatly are those that have had a serious spinal injury or something that leaves them paralyzed and unable to interact with others in a normal way. Some have learned how to use the Cyberlink well enough to type messages to their family after years of silence in a vegetative state. Pretty cool stuff. ;P *chuckle* It has a couple ways to be used and most people can pick up basic control with the unit within a few minutes. Since I suffer from tendonitis I'd also interested in the technology as a way to allow my wrists to recover from the injury. Its cool technology and it is available now... If interested, check it out at www.brainfingers.com. [brainfingers.com]. The website even has a message board [brainfingers.com] where people discuss some of the basics about the device and the technology involved. If you have any questions about what sorts of things the development API allows you to do, you can drop me an email at cyberlink_at_lifepod_dot_com. Cheers. :) Michael
  • Next thing you know you'll be deep inside enemy lines guns blazing.. You seem to notice a little flicker in your HUD, hear a little whisper over your headset or is there someone close to you. You look around, there's no one there. And you hear it again, more alert this time you can barely make out the sound Drink Budweiser and realize it's only a virtual advertisement.

  • There was a similar device described as a Circuit Cellar column project in Byte about 9 years ago. IIRC, you had to buy an EEG electrode from a medical supply house. The design was very simple - essentially an amplifier, A/D converter, and serial connector. Search the Circuit Cellar [circellar.com] archives if you are interested.
  • Remember a few years ago some company came out with a game system called "MindDrive"? You pugged a little device into your computer and put your index finger into it to control a game. I tried it out in a Computer City in San Diego... it worked fairly well. It was a Downhill Skiing game, and with enough concentration I was able to play fairly well. It look like this is a very similar system to that... only A LOT MORE EXPENSIVE.
  • They are using dry contact EEG technology developed by NASA. The technology apparently allows the 'brain bucket' to pick up some brainwaves and determine from that whether the wearer is focused or not.
    Apparently, the game controls are very spongy and not suited for precise control. Sorta matches the way people think; sorta spongy.
    What's probably more interesting is that the CTO of the company, and probably many of his trained minions are former Divx employees. You remember the hated and feared DVD rental scheme developed and ditched by Circuit City. Mr. Segal, and probably much of his technology team came from Divx (with a brief stop at iXL). So, we can probably derive that sooner or later East3 (the makers of the attention trainer device) will soon be implementing a rental scheme for thinking. So you will really have to 'pay attention'.
  • Dude, I want to run at 150Hz all the time! If this is the measure of the harmonic nature of brain activity, it must be something like a clock rate. If I wear a special cooling hat can I run at 200Hz? Maybe if I run liquid oxygen through my ears...
  • For those of us who use all of reasoning skills, a good resource is the Skeptic's Dictionary. Here's some authoritative debunking of auras.

    http://www.skepdic.com/auras.html [skepdic.com]

    -Ben

  • In a recent (oh, say 6 months ago) issue of SciAm, they detailed how to build a heart monitor (ECG), which could be used as the basis of such a device.

    I have a copy of that Byte article, lying around somewhere. From what I remember, the device was basically a very high-gain opamp - and very expensive (at the time). What it provided that other op-amps didn't was electrical isolation from the circuit (so you don't give yourself a frontal lobotomy vi electrocution while using it). In addition, the output was processed somewhat to remove noise (IIRC).

    Doing a little searching on google, I came up with this link - something called the Brainmaster. The following link is a note detailing how to build it:

    http://cs.felk.cvut.cz/~holoubl/stranka2/eeg.txt

    Next, is a link referenced in the above note, with information on coding, documentation, etc:

    ftp://brainmaster.com/pub/brainm/rel17/

    Did some more searching, and there is a new release:

    ftp://brainmaster.com/pub/brainm/rel18/

    Finally, go to the next level, lots more:

    ftp://brainmaster.com/pub/brainm/
    http://www.br ainmaster.com/

    Have fun!

    Worldcom [worldcom.com] - Generation Duh!
  • i can understand your skepticism, but unfortunately, it is completely impossible to do double-blind trials on EEG biofeedback. this company referred to is pretty full of it, agreed, but if you look at sites like the peakperformance one mentioned above and eegspectrum.com, you'd see a bit more 'controlled' anecdotal evidence.

    the two reasons why double-blind trials can't work in confirming the efficacy of neurofeedback training is because a) every brain has to be assessed individually and b) creating a 'placebo' treatment would be problematic.

    in regards to a), a treatment process that would work on one person would not necessarily work on another. the process of starting training is very involved - sensors are placed all over your skull with conductive paste, like any good EEG, and then your alpha/beta/SMR/delta/theta waves are all measured in four different states - eyes open and at rest, eyes closed, while reading, and one more which is determined by the attendant neurologist or neuropsychologist. then the computer program which is recording this information will make a long report (mine was 30 pages) of all the data received - this is called the brain map. it is up to the neuro*** to look at the data and determine where the patterns are, and based on the condition to be treated, determine the brain waves to be trained, and how.

    since i did computer support for the clinical trials at a large pharma co., i know how the data for doubleblinds is submitted, compiled, and compared - and i can't see a way, with the guarantee of wide variation in users, to do an effectual and *replicable* double blind trial with EEG biofeedback.

    as someone who has been undergoing biofeedback for one year for PTSD, i can say that the standard theory of how PTSD operates in the brain did not quite apply to me - and most PTSD (and ADD) sufferers show an astoundingly wide range of effects based on how they learned to cope with their symptoms. however, after looking at my individual map, my neuropsychologist was able to see specific unusual patterns and work with me to determine what actually *would* help me. it's an anecdotal account, sure, but i think the treatment is far less arbitrary than the actual psychiatric diagnosis itself...
  • Silly!

    How very well programmed you have been by this clunking and artificial culture of ours. And I bet you think that you are a rational & independant thinker, too. Very good! You get a ten out of ten and a smelly-sticker on your test, young citizen!

    Or. . .

    Try this for a while, (it's hard at first to break through the wall of routine, but you certainly don't need drugs to do it.):

    Observe without constraint, and then experiment with and question what you see. Belief in this practice is probably already a part of your character. You're a Slashdotter, so you have the beginnings of a brain; you just need to use it without fucking CNN and the 'Discovery Channel' guiding your eyes and holding your hand.

    Regarding auras. . . I doubt they exist in the U.V. spectrum, but they nonetheless remain a most intriguing phenomenon to observe. I have learned to see them myself to the point where they have become a normal part of my life. If you are interested, I can give you some pointers.

    Of course, you may choose to dismiss it all, (and me), as 'crazy'.

    But be cautious; 'Crazy' is an old and well used label applied by those too chicken-shit scared to examine the world without their censor-ware engaged. If you have the balls, you might try opening your eyes for real some day.

    Otherwise, just go back to your Playstation. Obedience is rewarded.

    -Fantastic Lad

  • How it (probably) works... (Score:3)

    by stokes ( 148512 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @08:35AM (#547041)
    If this system works like previous attempts at treating ADD/ADHD and other attentional problems via EEG biofeedback, it works by monitoring the ratio between the patient's beta and theta activity levels. An attentive state is typically characterized by a beta/theta ratio of less than one. Such systems typically produced visual output (graphs for adults, a simple video game for children), and over time the patient learns how to produce the desired ratio. A decade ago, I was a subject in a semi-experimental setup like this. After a few weeks, I had some limited success in consciously adjusting on-screen graphs.

    There's a big problem with it, however: it doesn't really work very well. The beta/theta ratio is characteristic of concentration, but it isn't itself concentration. While the patients can learn to manipulate this ratio, they're only learning to ape the symptoms of being attentive.
  • Sounds nice, but the human eyes do not have cells that would register UV radiation. Furthermore, why don't "auras" show up in UV sensitive photos?

    I don't know about "auras", but the human retina can definitely pick up UV. It's just filtered out by the cornea on the way through. Which explains why everyone gets cataracts after a nuclear holocaust.

    --

  • your comment is interesting and true, but it only applies to animals who have *consistently* similar lifestyles - as lab animals always do. there's been no demonstrated ability to replicate the experiment in wild animals, and in a brain as complex and multifaceted as a human brain, trying to associate single neurons with particular brain processes is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. EEG-type monitoring measures the *level* of particular types of activity in each section of the brain - it's a less labor-intensive way of getting an idea of how a complex individual brain's patterns are set.
  • What if the ad companies combine free helmets and free internet connections... uh-oh


  • FYI here is the product information page with its references to NASA, etc.

    Attention.com [attention.com]

    Now if they only made a gen x version I could use to shock myself silly...

  • It sounds like you might be talking about MindDrive, a galvonic skin repsonse sensor kit with some software, sold (iirc) by an outfit out of Austrailia.

    Don't know if they're still around, but they did have a website. www.minddrive.com, I think it was.


    0x0000

  • One limitation, though... (Score:3)

    by FatOldGoth ( 207461 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @04:22AM (#547047) Homepage
    ... Apparently you have to think in Russian.
    --
  • trying to associate single neurons with particular brain processes is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

    No one was suggesting assigning functions to single neurons - but rather studying the nervous system on the basis of the signals of single neurons. I would suggest that there is an enormous difference. Researchers have used signal detection theory in several well known examples in the labs of Ranulfo Romo and Bill Newsome to demonstrate that signals of some neurons, when averaged together in groups of around 100, can predict the decision of the animal in discrimination trials. These studies on relatively simple percepts can and will be elaborated into more complex behaviors as time progresses.

    Using microelectrode technology we have been able to verify that sensory disturbances exist in focal hand dystonia, a sensory-motor disorder that can be understood as a complication of repetitive stress injury. Such detailed observations as we made cannot be made with EEG. However, MEG studies were started after the animal studies to demonstrate recordings that were abnormal and predicted by our hypothesis. (EEG was inappropriate because the area in question is orthogonal to the radial vectors picked up in EEG).

    This is just one example of a case in which recordings made in lab animals transferred nearly completely to humans in the wild.

    EEG-type monitoring also does not measure the level of anything - it is only sensitive to changes in vector averaged voltages. Whereas signals carried by neurons have bandwidths of around 1-4 kHz, EEG hardly detects any energy above 100 Hz. All you get is a grossly averaged signal envelope that represents some aspects of action potentials and synaptic currents - in hypothesis only. If all the neurons in a cortical area had very high firing rates, but were largely asynchronized, EEG would measure nothing.

    Even knowing the neural signals exactly it is very difficult to predict the EEG with a high precision.

    Even so, we have studied field potentials - a kind of greatly amplified EEG - in depth in very simple cerebral cortical systems. It is far from obvious, even in such a simple case, how one can go from field potentials to neural signals.

    The signal processing of the brain represents such a challenge because the purest signals can be measured only by microelectrodes with tip exposures of 5 microns or less - as originally described by Galambos in 1943. That presents an enormous technical difficulty that challenges investigators still.

    If you've done EEG you know the limitations, and the variance, and the problems of uneven electrical conductance interfaces, and the studies to hypothesize what synaptic and action potential derived currents contribute to signals. I speak with EEG researchers regularly, and respect their work immensely. I don't think they would suggest a helmet such as the one described in the article would be adequate for much.
  • It's an EEG hooked up to a visual display. It provides a positive cue when the EEG pattern registers activity that the manufacturer considers attentive (this would be terribly subjective) and a negative cue when the EEG pattern registers activity the manufacturer considers inattentive.

    The catch is the subjectivity of the triggering of cues and the motivation of the user. In lab animals this is easy, when they register as attentive you give a treat.

    I don't know what the positive and minus cues the device uses are, but chances are they don't motivate a 9 year old the way a tasty cereal nugget motivates a gerbil. You'd almost have to resort to negative feedback (electro-shock or loud beeps) on negative cues to get results. Not that I'm advocating that for my cousin Jeff or anything...

  • We control computers with our eyes (see recent article). We control computers with our brainwaves. All I am waiting for now is controling computers with my earlobes.
  • you have your brainwaves a little mixed up.

    http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/LEA/MONOGRAPHS/ ROSENBOOM/rosenboom.html#PART2
    scroll down in that doc, and there's one example of my reference. you can do a simple google search and read a LOT of information that will verify what it has to say.

    for those of you who don't want to do the search:

    alpha is 8 - 12 Hz., daydreaming and creativity.
    regular beta is 13 - 30 Hz. thinking in 20-25 Hz is still normal concentrative activity.
    theta is 4 - 8 Hz., and it's the halfsleep state. high levels of theta denote relaxation and meditation, and has NOTHING to do with losing consciousness.
    delta is 2 - 4 Hz. - high levels of delta activity *normally* indicate deep sleep and/or unconsciousness.

    K-complex waves are currently defined another form of beta. there is no specific Hz brainwave correlation to the REM state - dreaming involves most Hz.

    interesting to note: they say that delta indicates deep sleep. however, my brain map indicated *very* high levels of delta activity while awake, and lower levels while asleep. i also have a great deal of alpha activity while reading.

    proof enough, they don't know everything yet ;)

  • The electrodes need to make very close contact with the head (to pick up the electrical signal) which is impossible to do with a simple helmet and is very uncomfortable.
    One thing I did learn when I interviewed with East3 earlier this year was that the "breakthrough" development they are trying to capitalize on is the single-point, dry-contact sensor they are using. It needs to be snugged up, but not glued on...

    I saw the prototype in use, and it does work. Noise due to movement of the head during use is/was a significant problem, which is probably the reason for the helmet design - i.e. to keep the sensor in place.

    Otherwise, your analysis of the use of EEG is pretty accurate, if I understood correctly. The technology already existed, they have improved the sensor, and repackaged it.

    The other thing I got out of the interview was that they were quite hostile to cross-platform development of the user software. E.g. there will be no Linux driver for the headset. They were talking about using the WinCE API to facilitate porting to game consoles, though. We'll see.

    This type of software has some really intrusive possiblities for use outside the "ADHD treatment" applications, too. I'm a lot more comfortable with the open source efforts at this type of controller than I am with what East3 is doing.

    I can't speak to the usefulness of the product as an ADHD treatment, but it was quite clear from the demo that various states of mind are quite detectable, and that the user can affect the EEG by "concentrating", fwiw.


    0x0000

  • No one was suggesting assigning functions to single neurons - but rather studying the nervous system on the basis of the signals of single neurons.

    that works well when you're discussing motor responses/reactions or injury-induced malfunctions, but it doesn't work when you're discussing something like increasing attention span, when a single neuron is a tiny part of the picture ;)

    i agree that the helmet is of no use for the means they discuss.

    but i do have to say that i know EEGs that can register up to 400 Hz, now...

  • Many Companies Addressing This (Score:3)

    by chrislt1 ( 264516 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @04:28AM (#547054)
    Check out www.peakachievement.com for a better scientifc explanation. NeuroTech is trying for patents on a device that can detect when your mind is focusing so they must be serious.
  • "Critics of video games have claimed that such toys have contributed to short attention spans and lack of focus in children. "

    I don't know what games they have been playing but even a game like Resident Evil much less a game real-time strategy games, or many others, I think that games actually tend to increase attention span. Because games now for the most part make you think throughout the game, unless it's like quake and most people will play that for a long period of time.

    "...the target audience is kids who have trouble concentrating or sitting still to do their homework, have little motivation or are hyperactive. "

    Its great that they have finally solved how to fix this, but how do you know that the child wants to play the game it doesn't sound like much fun to me.

  • iabcot (Score:5)

    by alephnull42 ( 202254 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @04:28AM (#547057) Homepage Journal
    - Take 1024 9-year old prodigies,
    - fit them all with this helmet,
    - sit them in front of Saddams 2000 PlayStationS2's,
    - boot the consoles with Linux,
    - wire them together in a Beowolf cluster,
    all of this to play the perfect game of Pitfall 2.

  • ...theres no side effects of using it in the same way that theres no side effects of having your photo taken...

    You mean it'll steal my soul?

  • Re:It'll be an EEG type device (Score:5)

    by blakestah ( 91866 ) <blakestah@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @05:13AM (#547059) Homepage
    And the gamma band (25-40 Hz)?? What about the gamma band ??

    The one really invoked in attention ??

    Truly, claims that anyone understands if or how a toy like this might work are mere pie in the sky. We'd need to understand how attention worked before we could train it using EEG waves that demonstrate at best a very weak noisy reflection of SOME but certainly not MOST brain events,

    In animal experiments people recorded EEG in the 1930s and 1940s as soon as amplifier technology began being applied to Neuroscience. Then in 1943 a researcher named Galambos (famous for co-discovering echo-location in bats) saw that using very small electrode tip exposures allowed recording from single neurons.

    This breakthrough led the animal researchers to all but throw away EEG as a useful tool, although there are tons of human data still. But the problems with the EEG are several. First, it only reflects a vector averaging of many million neurons and synaptic currents. And it only reflects the dot product of that average with a radial vector.

    Researchers estimate about 100 neurons in one area of the brain would be sufficient to carry the information in a percept, with perhaps 5, possilby as many as 10, brain areas involved. Such things are immeasurable by EEG. The things that are measurable are the oscillating features of brain processing, which could for all we know be epiphenomenonological. Or not. We really don't know yet. But the studies of the signals carried by single neurons clearly bear close relation to brain processing, and have been very difficult to relate to EEG-type monitoring.
  • It picks up electromegnetic variances (field potentials,) at various points on the skull. If you buy the rest of the model&math, it works like seismographs do at depicting the inside of inside of the earth except that its depicting electrical disturbances.

    Having been through an "evoked potential" test, I can tell you that it can be done but its still at a very crude stage of interpretation.
  • Getting balls into a hole or something, in wonderful 80s computer graphics.
    Can't remember any more than that, as I'm not a trekkie, it's just that I'd watch any old guff when I was at uni.

    FP.
    -- Real Men Don't Use Porn. -- Morality In Media Billboards
  • If a child truly cannot concentrate, then it may be of some benefit. IMHO, I really don't believe there are that many children in that situation. There are now many children who can devote their undivided attention while playing a game of Quake or watching cartoons but who fall asleep during history class. I say they attach the units to children at school and oust teachers who fail to keep children above the minimum brain activity level.
  • In other words, it's no different than attaching a sensitive voltmeter/scope to your head and looking at the signal. This is nothing new, and I seen many projects in electronics magazines which basically do the same thing (to control a motor or something) with the exception that they don't attach to your head. If you attach a sensitive amplifier to your arm, it will pick up the electrical signals to the muscles even if you don't actually move the muscle, just think about it. The problem with all of them is that the electrodes need to be attached VERY securely to the skin, using a special cream which conducts electricity. Kinda nasty and EXTREMELY glitchy if you hook it up to a game, because the EMP from the fridge or stove might cause you to fire your weapon or whatever the same as your muscles. BTW, something like this could be built for much less than $900, using ordinary parts.
  • Why all the work to inplant quadraplegics with transmitters so they could control a pointer on-screen? Just buy them a hat. It's a gimmick.

    This is just a really expensive bio-feedback device, very likely a waste of money that parents who are desparate will try anyway.
  • I've had very good luck using binaural beats generated by a program I had years ago (there are many of them now, but I haven't used them) that I burned onto a CD.

    As the previous poster says, the brain seems to operate differently at different frequencies. The idea of binaural beats is to 'trick' your brain into a steady oscillation at a particular level.

    I don't really know if this is a placebo or not (could be the white noise alone would have similar effect I guess), but it works really well for me.

    --

  • This is actually an older from of treatment. The difference is that previously the child being treated had to go to the doctor's office to be connected to a similar helmet the feedback consisted of some blinking lights. Now instead of using blinking lights to indicate progress the game reduces the random delay in the controller to make the game more fun. It's still the same idea just that these guys have found a way of doing it that's a little more palatable. It's kind of like the cherry flavor they put in cough syrup, most everyone thinks that it tastes terrible, but it's better than the taste of the medicine without.
    _____________
  • "
    If you can enter this mind state and still see, you can see the portions of the UV spectrum that auras exist in.
    "

    What complete idiots do you take slashdot readers for?

    Moderate this bull down. I've already posted so I can't.

    FP.
    -- Real Men Don't Use Porn. -- Morality In Media Billboards
  • I remember a project in Sinclair User or similar almost 20 years ago which used alpha wave levels (picked up by a modified towelling headband... well, it was the 80s) to steer a little blob (give it a break, it *was* a ZX81) over horizontally-scrolling 'jumps'. You learnt to concentrate to guide the blob safely through the course.
  • There's an old DOS program out there called FLASHER.EXE, which causes your computer to flash it's monitor at certain rates, utilizing a technique called photic brainwave stimulation. The theory is that the pulses of photons into the eyes are processed by the brain in pulses, which sets up an oscillation in the brain, once the optical processing centers begin to pick up on the oscillation, others may join in, and alter your state of consciousness. Back in the '80's, they used to sell light goggles for thousands of dollars that did this (anybody reasonably skilled in electronics could probably build a set for about $5 of parts).

    You could set FLASHER for a rate, and pattern and color, (neither of which really affects anything), and zone out in front of your machine trying to achieve an altered state. I think alpha worked okay, but the beta, theta, delta didn't work very well. Except when I smoked a doob, then delta would put me right to sleep. :)
  • I have heard that researchers are looking into a tool such as this one to train kids to deal with ADD and ADHD. Not sure how helpful it would be, but anything would be better than the automatic prescription of Ritalin.
  • The Attention Trainer(TM) is noninvasive. It detects signals emitted from the external surface of the head. Although The Attention Trainer(TM) poses no greater threat than a Walkie-Talkie or regular video games, it is not recommended for children under the age of 7. There are no harmful side effects from using The Attention Trainer. Although safe, if health issues exist, it is recommended that a physician be consulted prior to use.

    The sensors contain a simple solution that has been tested.

    Find more here [attention.com]

  • www.brainmaster.com (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is old news, Tom Collura has been making and selling a less slick version of this home EEG training protocol for years. And it runs on Linux. http://www.brainmaster.com Its just biofeedback, in and out of 'popularity' since the 70's. I used to have a set up for it on my Apple iie.
  • If all its users had to use their brains to navigate.

    --

  • But... (Score:5)

    by Flounder ( 42112 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @03:52AM (#547074)
    if you watch almost every multiplayer game on the net, there's a sizable minority of players that wouldn't even register on an EEG.

  • I don't know the specifics of the technology: I won't pretend to be a neuroscientist. However, it strikes me as unsafe that a device would sit on top of a kid's head like that, passively scanning their brain... Hell, I browsed the site for the product for a few minutes, actually looking for a clinical description of what the thing does, and couldn't find one. So using sensors of some sort, this thing measures brain activity. What, is it a home EEG?

    I'll not be putting this thing on my kid's head anytime soon... he needs to learn to pay attention, he can learn it the same way I did... without headgear.

  • That almost happened to me (seriously!) (Score:3)

    by Preposterous Coward ( 211739 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @09:15AM (#547076)
    For freakish reasons I was admitted to the intensive-care unit at the local hospital while I was a freshman in college, and my thoughtful roommates brought me some flowers conveniently wrapped in a "vase" made up of a rolled-up issue of Penthouse. Sitting in the hospital all day is pretty boring, and I was repeatedly tempted to open up the magazine and start, um, you know, reading the articles. But somehow the knowledge that electrocardiogram equipment was transmitting my heartbeat in real time to the nurses' station outside my door presented a bit of a hurdle to my plans for entertaining myself: Every time I contemplated leafing through the magazine, I started wondering how the nurses would react if they suddenly saw my heart rate jump from maybe 60 beats per minute to 120 or so. I had visions of a klaxon going off and a whole team of doctors and nurses rushing in to man the crash cart, only to realize that the "Code Blue" was actually just me checking out some blue pictures. Of course, I know that crash carts are generally used when your heart *stops*, but that minor detail didn't do much to reduce the sensation that I was indeed attached to a Porn Alarm(TM).
  • You could set FLASHER for a rate, and pattern and color, (neither of which really affects anything), and zone out in front of your machine trying to achieve an altered state. I think alpha worked okay, but the beta, theta, delta didn't work very well. Except when I smoked a doob, then delta would put me right to sleep. :)

    Try using a stobe light, and a smoke machine to make the flashing all enveloping. Add some music with a constant beat a harmonic of the flashing and a little Ketamine into the equation and you'll get into those mindstates no problem :-)

    The best DJ's I've seen use strobes quite effectively to trance out a whole dancefloor. It's really quite an amazing thing to be a part of.

  • Aren't you thinking of Horace goes Skiing? Sounds like it...
  • If you can enter this mind state and still see, you can see the portions of the UV spectrum that auras exist in.
    What complete idiots do you take slashdot readers for?

    Actually, I thought most of them would be open minded hackers who like to read up about interesting things. I think I got the bit about them being UV wrong; I must have made some assumptions at one point. But they are real, and can be photographed. See some examples [auraphoto.com].

    I think it's a real shame that many scientists are so closed minded that they don't meditate or explore some of these mystical phenomenons. I think the mind is the most fascinating phenomenon in the world to study.

    Moderate this bull down. I've already posted so I can't.

    Just ask yourself - are you moderating this comment down because it adds no value to the discussion, or because you disagree with what the author is saying?

  • I was under the impression that K-complexes showed up as one moved from theta to delta sleep.

    Interesting. That makes a bit more sense, actually - perhaps as you leave delta state your theta mind would pick up new ideas, then perhaps get all excited about them or something. I say this not really based on scientific understanding of the brain, but I have personally observed a kind of seperation between the the mindstates in myself, and the way they interoperate seems to be like having multiple minds inside your head, layered - each one is best at communicating with the closest two frequency bands - and each working in profoundly different ways - it's like your body (mammilian and reptilian brains, perhaps) is your upper mind's pet, controlled like a puppet by the strings of motor nerves, pleasure centres, and pain systems. Funnily enough, the Tao Te Ching speaks of having two souls - one that "returns to the earth" on death, and one that "ascends to heaven".

    The material I was reading was quite old; you don't happen to have a reference for that nugget of information, do you?

  • For those of us who use all of reasoning skills, a good resource is the Skeptic's Dictionary. Here's some authoritative debunking of auras.

    Fantastic site - a great resource. I read up a bit on one of the links, and I think this is the crux of the matter (from http://www.csicop.org/si/2000-05/i-files.html [csicop.org]:

    Although the Kirlian aura was claimed to present information about the "bioplasma" or "life-energy" of the object, actually it is only "a visual or photographic image of a corona discharge in a gas, in most cases the ambient air."
    Moreover, experiments have failed to yield any evidence that the coronal pattern is related "to the physiological, psychological, or psychic condition of the sample," but instead only to finger pressure, moisture, and other mechanical, environmental, and photographic factors (some twenty-two in all). Skeptics observed that even mechanical objects, such as coins or paper clips, could yield a Kirlian "aura" (Watkins and Bickel 1986).

    This is what I originally suspected that auras were, hence the UV comment. That is, your body generates em radiation, and that means electrons shifting orbits, and electrons shifting more orbits than average causes UV radiation, so you are emitting a small amount of UV. This would excite the air around you slightly, which could be perceived as a corona of glowing air. As the equilibrium of electrical activity that is your brain changes state, changes might be perceived to the aura; this group seems to have decided it didn't change, but I guess I'd have to read the methodology of their study to make a decision on that. It is always possible that changes are detectable, but it is difficult to gather any useful information from it other than whether the person is alive or dead.

    I'm as skeptic as anyone else here of what usefulness auras are - but apparently some people can see them all of the time, and can tell things from them. What of that women who had tetrachromic vision reported recently? I wonder whether it was UV or IR that she saw, or whether she simply had a colour quadrilateral in the visible region. I wonder exactly how well the cornea transduces UV light; some say it's UV opaque, but I bet it's not completely.

    I like to read even a "skeptic's" web site as a skeptic - scientists are well known for their ability to toss away figures in an experiment that are so wildly wrong that they don't fit their model. They seem to be working under an assumption that the universe is governed by a small set of rules, which seems to be true - but you never know. I think making assumptions is always dangerous.

  • But unless some first-person shooter or a decent RPG game is written for this thing, I don't see it going much of anywhere.

    The primary importance of making a helmet that monitors your brainwaves and rewards concentration is having games for it where you need to concentrate.

    I can play Everquest and Diablo II on remote, as it were, because of the character types I play (Warrior and Barbarian). I have high-scored Tetris while reading Heinlein novels. About the only games that I need to concentrate on are the ROMs of 80s games and a couple Pinball simulators.

    Without a game that is interesting, this is nothing but a novelty. Even with good games, it's still a novelty. Now if you could hook it into Pinball Magic...

    Kierthos
  • Taken from the FAQ of that site:

    "The sensors contain a simple solution that has been tested" and "The Attention Trainer(TM) does not have side effects..."

    You say that "you take a nice, non-conductive material...and...coat it with silicone (watch out, that stuff is carcinogenic)"

    How do those two go along?

  • you have your brainwaves a little mixed up.

    Nah, I was just about bullshitting - a lot of what I said are purely my misconceptions, and a lot of my reading on the matter comes from old books. But I sure as hell got a lot of useful information about the subject to aid my own understanding of the matter :-). Aren't discussion forums great?

    To make things clear, the "Alpha", "Beta" etc labels are just that - labels of observed activity, and I've heard all sorts of definitions of what ranges each of them are. I did do a google search, and the values I gave aren't really that different from what you've listed, but you've lumped beta and gamma (I originally called that Super-Beta) into the same category.

    there is no specific Hz brainwave correlation to the REM state - dreaming involves most Hz.

    That's why I said "very erratic", and called it a "state" rather than "activity". If a waveform is showing most Hz, then superimposed it's probably quite close to white noise, which is pretty erratic.

    The stuff about losing conciousness is my own theory. Conciousness isn't really that well understood, anyway. Personally I think conciousness is a product of the brain connecting events (like audio/visual input, thoughts) that differ only by time; and when you're in deeper mindstates, there are less familiar things around for your mind to work with when correlating events together to produce a perception of time. This would explain the gaps in your stream of conciousness when you sleep. People good at meditating are just more familiar with the transition between the mindstates - and therefore more likely to make it through a radical mindstate change whilst still connecting one moment to the next.

  • REM is also common. It is a sleepstage that all people have more times during every night sleep.

    More than common, I'd say - not being able to enter REM is a serious disorder.

  • Biofeedback devices like this have been used to sucessfully treat ADHD for years. The device just has to give the kid some kind of positive feedback when their brainwaves show that they are relaxed and alert - once they learn how to relax they can do it anytime. Its not rocket science.
  • it's hard at first to break through the wall of routine, but you certainly don't need drugs to do it.

    No, but they can certainly speed along the start of the process :-)

    I have learned to see them myself to the point where they have become a normal part of my life. If you are interested, I can give you some pointers.

    That would be much appreciated... my e-mail address is sam@vilain.net, or post them here - I check my user page to see if people respond to my postings, usually.

  • yea i get that too, i go into theta everytime i hear white noise..

    You didn't tear open a card that someone told you was "Snow Crash" in the metaverse, did you... tut tut.

  • It sure gives new meaning to "First Person Shooters".
  • This Slashdot article [slashdot.org] talked about this concept in August. Looks like it was turned into a commercial product pretty quickly.
  • This is not an uncommon technology. I don't know the specifics off the top of my head, but maybe about 15 years ago some bright spark phd students were plugging electodes onto peoples heads to race slot cars. The idea was that the 'rodes (not anything really hifi - just your average suction cap-wire jobby) would pickup changes in brainwaves (i.e. electrical current). These would be run through an amplifier and fed into the power socket of some slot cars. If you relaxed real hard you could power your car to beat the other guy's. I think the idea was supposed to be some sort of metal training, but it was pretty obvious that all these guys wanted to do was race slot cars. More effort was put into track design than measuring results. Amen to that.
  • Isn't this the plot to "Toys" ?

  • reading about the product I noticed a very odd thing at least in my opnion. It seems to rely on sending your kids brain information to some internet site. Now I see no reason for this why cant a local protfolio be created, then if you read deeper they sugest and provide to you an online way of keeping track of your kids progress in school etc... seems like alot of information to be giving to some unkown company especialy since I didnt see any privacy statement about the information(but I might have missed that)
  • as a device to help the person charging $899 for it make lots of money

    But if you want to use the device help improve your child's attention span, forget it.

    Some true insight on ADD? My kid brother had it. It's no big secret -- he's just a smart guy who's just BORED because at that school they are teaching him simple and boring stuff. It's sadistic to force a smart person to sit and "pay attention" to a crossword puzzle where you fill in presidents' names or other crap like that.

  • Just wanted to say I have seen this technology being used in a more advanced area. A pilot in a simulator was flying the jet using brain waves. It was pretty interesting he controlled the jet to fly threw loops. Anyway just throwing my two cents in.
  • "K-Complex" spikes - anything up to 150Hz; very rare, short lived spikes thought by some to be linked to moments of profound insight. Virtually unheard of.

    On the contrary, K-complex waves occur almost every night for the average person. A K-complex is a "high voltage EEG activity that consists of a sharp upward component followed by a slower downward component and lasts more than .5 seconds; required for definition of Stage 2 non-REM sleep."

    There's no epiphany associated witn K-complex waves when one is not sleeping either. Although I don't disagree with most of the summary above, it appears to be intended for the layman.

    Slashdot is not populated by laymen.
  • Sam and Blakestah are pretty much correct in this being an EEG type device. The Play Attention is one of several such devices used in ADDS and related treatments. This partcular device uses the helmet to quickly and easily position the electrodes. Other systems have to strap them on. Most use some conductive gel as well (messes up the hair a bit, especially if you already got gel and spikes!)

    Generally when you are concentrating on the task at hand your brain settles into some rythms. The systems monitor how long/well you hit the marks. Some systems, like those from NeuroCybernetics [neurocybernetics.com] use the brainwaves to control video games. The more you conentrate or hit the right frame of mind, the better your scores.

    More background and company links can be found at:
    http://vr.isdale.com/AlternativeIO_Links.htm#Neura lBackground [isdale.com]
  • They are basicly working off of the perhaps flawed assertion that biofeedback helps ADD. There is no scientific evidence of this, and nobody's doing double-blind testing of biofeedback.

    I've heard about this company in the past and they turned me off by insisting that anecdotal evidence -- stories of people who used biofeedback and found that it helped -- as scientific proof. The company doesn't quite double blind studies, which are much closer to proof.

    OTOH, it's /just/ $899, is most likely harmless.

    I'm very skeptic about most of the claims of curing ADD with ... treatment. There are getting to be as many ADD cures that are full of it as there are cures for cancer that are full of it.
  • these things usually work on the buzzword 'biofeedback' which can measure how calm (and concentrated) you are by something like skin surface resistance, brain waves and heart.

    the thing stops beeping as you reach a good mood/blood pattern, if you can do this without the device you can control attention, hyperactivity, coordination etc (all ADD problems)

    but to get kids to use biofeedback devices, you have to make them more fun than a little metal plate with a piezo, so dr.'s hooked em into video games and computers, controls become more usable as the user produces the right patterns. if the child can replicate this in the classroom then they would be 'cured' of ADD.

    it is only the interface that gets put on the news not the real genious of these devices.
    ______
  • Look at this too: http://www.brainm.com

    Wasn't there some guy who worked with the Air Force 20 years ago to fly planes with brain wave manipulation? (The real-life basis for Firefox's control systems) I remember seeing a PBS documentary about him where he piloted his sailboat using his brainwaves.
  • The brain is amazingly adaptable and capable of learning. It can even learn to improve its own performance, if it is shown what to change. By making information available to the brain in real-time about how it is functioning, and asking it to make adjustments, it can do so. The games challenge the trainee to maintain this "high-performance," alert and attentive state. Gradually, the brain learns and the brain retains the new skill.
  • yea i get that too, i go into theta everytime i hear white noise..

    but then i bet it's from using SBaGen [demon.co.uk] every night.


    nmarshall

    The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
  • All software of this kind must spend time "learing" what the hosts brainwave patterens are for different "events". Without the ability to single out and tag the specific brainwave patteren that indicates "paying attention" the software is worthless. I worked on a GUI for a piece of software like this 4 or 5 years ago. The software built a "map" of the brain with pattern to event relationships. After a LONG LONG LONG period of training you could type slowly without using the keyboard or your fingers! Kind of fun. Too slow and too inaccurate to be useful.
  • Although safe, if health issues exist, it is recommended that a physician be consulted prior to use.

    Yeah, if little Billy is prone to epileptic fits at bright flashes of light (found in many console and computer games), then adding something to "monitor" his brainwaves may not be the best idea. Same goes for autistic kids... they might start beating their heads against a wall because they're wearing the helmet.

    Kierthos
  • A little gem from their FAQ [attention.com] page about a Personal Training Account [attention.com]:
    A Personal Training Account is a secure location online that allows you to monitor, assess and guide your child's progress with The Attention Trainer[tm]. After each play session, your child's scores are sent to a secure location on the web site. These scores are used to create personal training reports that provide you results and information on your child's training.
    Oh great! Now you can upload your brainwaves! If we ever manage to properly analyze them, who knows what they can be used for. Am I being too paranoid or is this really a privacy concern?

    - da Lawn

  • Well, I don't know. You're teaching them to concentrate, which is good for kids with ADD and ADHD, but you're teaching them to concentrate on video games, which probably won't help their school-work all that much...

    Just my 2 shekels.

    Kierthos
  • Yeah, it would be nice to see what the short and long-term effects of this device would be. I wonder if it even has to any kind of medical testing?

    Although, if it is a "home EEG", there could be some other uses for it, besides this. Wonder what the brainwave activity of my cat is?

    Kierthos

  • The core technology (Score:3)

    by Shoeboy ( 16224 ) on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @04:07AM (#547108) Homepage
    I did some work with similar technology doing postgraduate work at USU [usu.edu]. Here's how it works.
    When the brain is active, it gives out tiny amounts of charged particles known as bosuns. The harder a part of the brain is working, the more concentrated the bosuns. So what you do is you take a nice, non-conductive material like a plastic helmet and the you coat it with silicone (watch out, that stuff is carcinogenic) Then you dope the silicone with an acidic mixture of carbonated water, concentrated orange juice, citric acid, apartame, potassium benzoate, citrus pectin, potassium citrate, caffeine, gum arabic, natural flavors, brominated vegetable oil, yellow number 5 and erythorbic acid. Then you place a zinc and a copper electrode in each of the doped patches. IBM did a lot of the heavy lifting on this and they call it a silicone on insulator, plastic grid array [ibm.com]. When a bosun interacts with a part this network, it generates a small electrical charge that can be measured. If you use a fine enough network and a little uzbekistanium (to reduce signal leak) you can determine the location and intensity of brainwave activity. This has a lot of potential.
    --Shoeboy
  • Zero is a function of NULL which returns type Pointer-to-Void?
    I guess you can argue about it.
    As usual with C-Pointers, I've probably put the '*' in the wrong place and the function is pointing at Nihilism, thus depressing my Stack to breaking point.
  • I think I saw something like this on the news a few weeks ago: Basicly the helmet watches the brain waves too see if the person playing the game is concentrating on the game. The longer the player is concentrating, the easier the game gets. This gets the brain into the habbit of spending more time on one thing, which allows for the people to improve their concentration skills. I think it's made for kids with ADD or ADHD.
  • I wonder how much it will take until somebody hack this thing into something useful, such as a pointing device or a keyboard replacement.

    And I bet it would be a blast to drive a kaleidoscope style program. Whooooa!.
  • This goes back a few years, but I seem to remember reading about some experimental work at Atari in the early-to-mid 90's where they were using slight differences in alpha waves (I think) to control the movement of a pointer (mouse arrow) on a screen. It was for some "next-generation" game controller. Users of the device had to practice (concentrate) a bit before it became responsive, but it did work. Can anyone confirm this?

  • It'll be an EEG type device (Score:5)

    by sam_vilain ( 33533 ) <sam.vilain@net> on Wednesday December 20, 2000 @04:51AM (#547113) Homepage

    It's probably monitoring EM waves radiated by your brain.

    Unfortunately, you probably can't get much information out of it - it mostly looks like noise. Interpreting it would be at least as difficult as building a TEMPEST device - that is, if we had complete design schematics of the brain. Otherwise it's orders of magnitude harder.

    However, there are some interesting things you can do, using Fourier analysis. Studies have shown that the predominant frequency of waves coming off can reflect the state of mind of the wearer:

    • "Beta" activity - 12 to 15 Hz, normal awake state
    • "Alpha" activity - 7 to 9 Hz, which is the state you are in whilst daydreaming, and for a lot of the night sleeping. A very powerful mind state, as memory is greatly enhanced. It is possible to train your mind to enter this state at will, al la _The Silva Mind Control Method_ by Jose Silva, or just about any non-Western religion.
    • "Theta" activity - 3 to 5 Hz, which is a very deep meditative state. Most people cannot enter this state without losing conciousness, which is largely because by this stage you have lost many of your external senses, and your trains of thought stop working so rationally. Hence you don't remember the experience, which is what you experience as losing conciousness. There are some people that argue that the human mind is never actually unconcious. If you can enter this mind state and still see, you can see the portions of the UV spectrum that auras exist in.
    • "Delta" activity - 1 to 2 Hz - deep sleep. If you can remember anything from this state, you're either a meditation guru, or having a religious experience.
    • "REM" state - very erratic activity, this is what you are in when you are dreaming. Your body is in "sleep paralysis", which is how you can try to move about in your dream and not have your meat thrash about. "Awareness during sleep paralysis" is when you realise you are dreaming, and become aware of it. An ultra-cool experience, sometimes called "startrekking" because of it's similarity to being in the holodeck in Star Trek, other times "Lucid Dreaming". In fact, it's better than the holodeck - you don't have to address the computer to change things, just think it and it is done.
    • "Super-beta" activity - 15 to 30 Hz - quite rare and not very well studied. Your mind probably would not be functioning very stably at this point; you'd be scatterbrained and unable to hold detailed trains of thought. Not mentioned often.
    • "K-Complex" spikes - anything up to 150Hz; very rare, short lived spikes thought by some to be linked to moments of profound insight. Virtually unheard of.

    The two common ways to explore these mind states are meditation and drugs, although often a combination of both.

    This helmet could be an incredibly useful tool for amateur psychonauts/meditators for monitoring meditation and/or drug experiences. You could also build a biofeedback device to help you reach the lower states with it, or a lucid dreaming device.

    Sounds like a great toy for a hacker with an interest in the mind!

  • The ultra-selfish, science-for-money, see-it-to-believe-it Western paradigm has plenty of holes in it, but you won't have a chance of seeing any of them if you insist on thrashing about like that.

    Maybe you'll figure it out next life.

    But just in case, here's a hint for this one: anybody asking or looking for money in return for this kind of knowledge almost certainly won't have any answers worth listening to. And as for proof. . , nobody with answers really gives a hoot about providing them to cynics for the sake of 'converting' them.

    Evidence is abundant and self-providing once you honestly allow yourself to take the first few steps, but you must be in a searching frame of mind to begin with, and only you can put yourself there.

    Another point to think over: This stuff does not stem from any structure like that of Big Organized Religion. --The practitioners of sorcery, chi, shamanism, etc., really don't give a flying fuck whether or not you wake up or continue to sleep. NONE of them is going to waste a second of their time trying to 'save your soul.' Arm bands and merit ribbons simply aren't won that way. --Heck, my primary reason for writing this now is simply that I enjoy heckling the unawakened. (Clowns like you.) I'm sure it's a weakness on my part which will eventually need to be weeded out, but at the moment I indulge, and in truth, there are those out there who ARE searching and who might be able to make some use of my jack-ass little words so as to begin or continue their own personal quests toward enlightenment.)

    In any case, I realize that proceeding without proof completely flies in the face of our limiting Western culture. But believe it or not, that's almost the point.

    Basically, guys like you don't really have a great deal of hope so long as your first questions are about how to aquire concrete proof and turn it into money. That is SOOO far away from 'getting' it!

    Really. I hear another Mario-Brothers sequel is coming out. You might be able to pick that up at your local WalMart if you hurry. --And perhaps grab some Taco-Bell while you're at it. Mmm! Tacos and cute Italian plummers; that'll be sure to whisper you back into slumber.

    -Fantastic Lad

  • Just imagine what this would do to help the porn sites. MMMMM *THINKS*
  • While some people are born with higher levels of awareness than others, 'mundane' people can certainly train their awarenesses as well.

    And paying for the 'secret' is total bullshit. That kind of thinking is just another product of the social programming we get hammered with in this stupid ad-culture. The information is entirely free to those who search, and searching is not hard at all.

    You will, however, not be sensing and manipulating energy overnight. The quick-gain, 'something for nothing' attitude is one of the biggest stumbling blocks, and indeed, one of the most destructive forces, in Western culture.

    If you are still interested, let me know at. . .

    yobthra@yahoo.ca

    Take care

    -Fantastic Lad

  • As scary as it sounds I'm sure there are plenty of companies who would love to have their programmers strapped into these things.

    PHB #1: Uh-oh looks like programmer #17 is daydreaming again.
    PHB #2: Release the hounds!
  • Ok, there are a few things which are troublesome here, which no one seems to have acknowledged. First, the technology, which I do know off the top of my head, is EEG Electro-Encephalo-Gram, and Nasa [nasa.gov] did/does use it. the problem is, EEG is the analogous to poking about in a goat's innards. the same technology (little electrodes on your head) is used in the much more fruitful ERP (event related potential research). However this involves a rigourous experimental design, and a computer to breakdown, usually fourier transforms, the signals in response to specific stimuli in the millisecond range. Additionally, you need someone who can understand the data (sorry, a computer can't do this yet), this person need to know enough about neuroanatomy and cognition to decide just how meaningful the results are. for example, these folks The Sackler Institute [sacklerinstitute.org]. To honestly expect to be able to teach your kids to focus by having them play video games with an 800$ helmet? It is really quite sad actually. Basically, the people and technology involved in meaningfully researching in this domain are a not going to come with this helmet, which in effect is pricey, do-it-yourself phrenology . [skepdic.com]
  • It works by harnessing parents' guilt, combined with a rationalization of letting their kids play all day long -- these forces are then converted into $899.
  • Umm

    It's PASSIVELY scanning the brainwaves

    theres no side effects of using it in the same way that theres no side effects of having your photo taken, it just picks up what radiation (in the very general sense of the word) your brain already gives out.

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