Mind Control for Second Life
A system for controlling your character in Second Life using only the thoughts of the user has been developed by the Keio University Biomedical Engineering Laboratory. The user wears an electrode-equipped head piece that transfers signals from the brain's motor cortex, to an EEG machine, then to the movements of the in-game avatar. Basically, you think about moving your character's arm, and it moves. No keyboard, no controllers.
This is some amazing, ground breaking stuff right here. William Gibson, in his visionary Neuromancer imagined a future when we interacted in a virtual world of information, a merging of the current internet and virtual reality space. The user uses a headband of "trodes" that did just what this new device does - transfer thought to virtual action.
A device like this was inevitable, and the implications on the near and far future are astounding. In the short term, beside the obvious game play possibilities, the physically impaired can operate computers and characters in an entirely new way, and it can also can be used for wheelchairs and thought-controlled interfaces at work and at home. In the far future, as I have thought since I first read Neuromancer that Gibson was right and his vision of cyberspace will come to pass.
via Gizmodo > Pink Tentacle > Nikkei Net
