CeBIT 2008 Day 2 - OCZ's Mind Controllable Mouse, ASUS' HDMI Sound Card, Intel and more
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 5, 2008 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
OCZ's "Brain Mouse" Officially Launched
For as long as I can remember, OCZ has been showing off its "brain mouse", now much more professionally titled the Neural Impulse Actuator (NIA). The NIA can measure brain waves and respond to triggers from muscles in your face, translating them into mouse movements and button presses. The end result is a device that lets you play first person shooters with minimal use of your hands.
The NIA demoed at CeBIT is as close to final as it's going to get and we had a try at it.
First off, the air in Hall 21 is particularly dry so you need to lotion up a bit:
Manny lotions up his forehead
Next, you simply place the NIA around your head and tighten the lanyard:
Manny dons the NIA
OCZ rep Dr. Michael Schutte just threw us into a game of Unreal Tournament 3 without any additional training or configuration, he just told us to play and within seconds we were at least moving around and shooting.
Manny is arguably just as good at UT3 with the NIA as he is without it
Initially it's tough to get a hang of exactly what you need to do to control your character. You still use a mouse to look around, but all movement including shooting and jumping is controlled using your head. I found that blinking tended to make me move forward, while raising my eyebrows would make me jump and shoot.
Watching Dr. Schutte use the NIA was a far more seamless experience:
The more novice you are the more you have to use exaggerated facial expressions to get the NIA to react, but Dr. Schutte manages to play UT3 with a stoic look on his face. We only spent a few minutes with the NIA but it performed far better than expected.
Dr. Schutte frags with his mind
This is how Manny fires
OCZ lists the MSRP as $199 and the NIA does admittedly work far better than expected, although it may be a tough sell for those who are too used to a keyboard and mouse.
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ivorstukje - Wednesday, March 5, 2008 - link
You can get nifty little wooden USB sticks from several places if you like wood with your IT. I have seen www.flashsticks.co.uk These would go well with one of these lap tops :)PlasmaBomb - Wednesday, March 5, 2008 - link
You should give her a go on the NIAAmberClad - Wednesday, March 5, 2008 - link
Could you ever actually see that replacing keyboard + mouse? I mean, the aiming part, which you still apparently have to do with the mouse, is the hard part, not the movement, which is what the NIA is being used for.I don't see how this could be used for aiming efficiently, due to its seemingly digital nature (mouse control is analog).
I also see any advantage being gained from the potentially increased response time being outweighed by the fact that you now have a disconnect between what you're using to aim (your hand) and what you're using to fire (your facial movements). What good is fast responses if the timing of the responses is off? If there was any advantage to this sort of a setup, the military would have been using it long ago.
Visual - Thursday, March 6, 2008 - link
certainly, it is not the ideal solution, having to make funny faces in order to interface with a computer - but it is just a starting step. i am glad asus is doing this - it will help popularize the idea itself, even if this particular implementation is rather basic.non-invasive approaches are getting better and better, but will never get as good as an implant. i personally believe we will eventually all have bci implants. i am sure brain-computer interfaces are the future, and will revolutionize our lives to an extent most of us can't even imagine yet.
there are so many possibilities in this technology that i can probably spend hours, if not days, talking about it... but i'll spare you the torture for now :p
AmberClad - Thursday, March 6, 2008 - link
A brain implant would be far more advanced than this little gadget, I agree. Personally, I'm very intrigued by the idea, but I think there are those out there who would be horrified by idea of cybernetics.ebuyings0005 - Friday, September 4, 2009 - link
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