The Game Controller That Taps Directly into Your Brain

Gaming is an all-important part of our daily lives, whether we're using a PC, a next-gen (or last-gen) gaming console or a mobile phone. Over the past few years, we've seen some pretty interesting developments in the area of controllers (from Sony's rumbling PS2 controller to Wii's motion sensitive, accelerometrically-enhanced Wiimote), but it would seem that all of these innovations might be rendered obsolete very soon, since a company called Emotiv Systems has developed (or so it pretends) a device that allows users to play their favorite games by using just the power of their minds.

According to the company, Project Epoc is a headset that uses a set of sensors to tune into electric signals naturally produced by the brain in order to detect the player's thoughts, feelings and expression, being able to detect both human conscious thoughts and non-conscious emotions. The core procedure behind all this technology is non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG), which is used for observing each person's individual electrical brain activity.

The Project Epoc system is formed out of the headset itself, as well as a processing unit, which incorporates a series of detection suites. So, there's the Expressiv suite, that can identify facial expressions in real-time, the Affectiv suite, used for measuring the players' discreet emotional states, as well as the Cognitiv suite that detects the gamer's conscious thoughts.

It's still pretty uncertain whether this device actually works, or we're talking about some sort of ghost-product; but if it does, it might bring about an extraordinary change in the way we see and experience not only games, but the whole computer-human interaction process. All we know for now is that the company can be contacted for private demos at the 2007 Game Developers Conference, but we hope to hear a lot more about this company in the near future.

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