Emotiv Systems showed off a consumer-level, non-invasive electroencephalography headset earlier this year meant to revolutionize the gaming and virtual world. The demo at GDC hit a few technical snags, but also drew a lot of interest from attendees and press. Now Emotiv has announced that the system will be released this year at a suggested price of $299 and will be packaged with an Emotiv-made game meant to show off the headset's abilities. At least some members of the company, though, are also interested in virtual worlds.
I haven't seen it in person, but the idea of a headset that not only tracks movement via gyroscope, but also boasts the ability to track 30 different expressions and emotions from grimaces to smiles to raised eyebrows is, at the very least, pretty interesting.
That's especially the case when, at the higher end of the brain-computer interface scale, researchers made headlines this week by using a non-invasive EEG setup to let a paralyzed man walk in Second Life.
"Being able to control a computer with your mind is the ultimate quest of human-machine interaction," Nam Do, chief executive officer of Emotiv Systems, said in a statement. "When integrated into games, virtual worlds and other simulated environments, this technology will have a profound impact on the user's experience. Since announcing our prototype last year, we've made dramatic technological breakthroughs in order to create the first wearable, affordable brain-controlled gaming headset. We're excited to see our vision realized this year and look forward to enabling gamers out there to experience brain-controlled gaming for themselves." [emphasis mine]
Handsfree 3D is aiming specifically (or at least demoing specifically) at creating a new tool to interface with Second Life, aiming potentially at a late 2009 release, it seems. I'll be interested to see if the folks at Emotiv have done any extra work to integrate their headset with virtual worlds as well.
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