Culture

Virtual Worlds and Neural Interfaces

www.youtube.com/watch?v= Researchers from the Graz University of Technology in Austria and University College London in the UK have teamed up to create a virtual world which allows users to navigate through it with brain input alone. The technology driving this innovation is built around a “brain-computer interface”–essentially, a series of electrodes attached to a user’s […]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=

Researchers from the Graz University of Technology in Austria and University College London in the UK have teamed up to create a virtual world which allows users to navigate through it with brain input alone. The technology driving this innovation is built around a "brain-computer interface"–essentially, a series of electrodes attached to a user's scalp, fitted with EEG equipment to monitor brainwaves. The big idea here is to develop the system as a tool to help patients with physical disabilities, with myriad possible applications.

Jessica Bayliss, a brain-computer interface and VR specialist at the
Rochester Institute of Technology, is enthusiastic about the possibilities:

A system such as this could be very motivational for a patient to use for training. It reminds me of how people with various handicaps are playing World of Warcraft, because they are able to do things in the virtual world that they can't do in the real world.

The video embedded above shows a paraplegic patient navigating through a virtual environment using the Presenccia consortium's brain-computer interface.

Virtual world sharpens mind-control [New Scientist Tech, via KurzweilAI.net]