Is the Emotiv EPOC headset Brain Computer Interface the future of gaming?

The Emotiv EPOC Brain Reading Headset for Gaming

What is the future of gaming technology? How about playing with your brain? By thinking. The Emotiv EPOC headset “Brain Computer Interface” does just that.

And may find us playing video games, in the future (not that you can’t do it right this very minute. The technology is here) via telekinesis. Ahem. I mean, just by using out brains to think!

You may be doing this via a device dubbed the “Emotiv EPOC headset”, which claims to be the first “Brain Computer Interface” (BCI) device that’s specifically developed for the gaming market! They also claim they have mastered the technology of “thought-control”.

The EPOC works by detecting and processing real time brain activity patterns (small voltage changes in the brain caused by the firing of neurons) using a device that measures electric activity in the brain. It can pick up over 30 different expressions, emotions and actions!

As for how exactly it can or will be applied to video games, that’s open to debate. But according to experts that CNN talked to, the science fiction scenarios depicted in movies like The Matrix and shows like Star Trek and it’s “holodeck”, are now feasible realities. Not at this moment, but at least in the future.

Rosie the Robotic Maid from The JetsonsOf course, just because the technology to do these things has been reached, doesn’t actually mean they will become wide-spread in their usage, much less mainstream. Or even that they will be accepted if and when the time comes. After all, human beings have been building robots for years, but we are still far away from the days of having a real robot made ala Rosie the Robotic Maid from The Jetsons.

Todd Greenwald is an American gaming analyst who believes it may be some time yet before brain to computer interfaces reach a marketable standard, saying it is “a bit too far out and speculative to say with any confidence”. And Darryl Charles of the University of Ulster, who is a video gaming lecturer, is also uncertain that the technology, even if available, would actually take off. “It’s a little bit harder to see. It’s quite a complex thing to force your thought on a television screen.”

However, Emotiv’s Le strongly defended the headset (as you’d expect), saying it “works on a vast majority of people and can adapt to a wide variety of thought patterns. Emotiv has carried out tests with hundreds of people and so far we have had success on every single person.”