What’s cheaper than a miniaturized, flying insect-like robot controlled by artificial intelligence? A miniaturized computer chip embedded as a control device in a natural organism. One of DARPAs projects involves injecting a chip into a Moth during the larva stage, the larva effectively adapting to the chip as part of its body. Once the moth hatches, machine learning is used to control it — to translate the signals and responses from the moth’s organic body — and effectively making it a mechorganic hybrid spy device; a cyborg moth.
When I was young I read Stephenson’s Snow Crash, and as I’ve mentioned before, that story was real gasoline on an already visionary-bent mind. Since then, I’ve watched the babysteps of online virtual worlds enthusiastically. I’ve also been haunted by a childlike desire for a head mounted display (HMD), for several reasons. Most notably the immersion these displays add to the computing experience, but also the comfort of not having to accommodate myself to the screen but having the screen accommodate me. Today I seem to have finally found one that might be worth buying.
Microsoft recently demonstrated it’s multi-touch screen-table intended for companies and corporations. Similar to the features recently demoed in Apple’s iPhone, the table (named Surface) allows you to manipulate images, videos and documents using touch-screen technologies. But before Apple announced the iPhone and its patented technologies, Jeff Han of Perceptive Pixel had demonstrated his very similar and jaw-dropping multi-touch display.
Let’s hope your passion for human health exceeds your resentment of (lesser-) animal cruelty. Here are two videos of monkeys slash mechanical arms, controlled using signals from their motor cortex via implanted electrodes. Neither of the videos are too clear on whether the movement sequences are limited to what’s shown (move forward, get fruit, bring back) — but I believe these are both rather old and outdated, so who cares. We just want to see the cyborg monkeys!
I love the graphical representation of electric activity in the analyzation software: Green horizontal lines with green and pale blue bars. Almost state of the art yet so retro-futuristic! No, really, they remind me of the first electrocardiograms. So many questions left to answer. Awesome.
I wrote about Emotiv’s Project Epoc a few days back; a brain-computer interface which they claim is more advances and capable than any other non-invasive system so far. In addition, they intend to commercialize it this year. Naturally that makes a nerd like me pretty excited, so I’ve been scavenging the web and found a video demo today on YouTube.
The video is of their Stonehenge Demo — a game where the user’s goal is to lift, push and rotate the Stonehenge stones into position using only his mind. With some minor difficulties, the tester (who’s probably a trained Emotiv employee) finishes the level. While watching, I asked myself but couldn’t really be sure whether the delays were part of the gameplay or simply insensitivity of the system. Another question is regarding the hand movements of the user; If the system can distinguish a difference between rotating, pushing and pulling intentions of the user, then I’m really impressed.
Unfortunately I’m inclined to think the hand gestures are mainly for theatrical purposes. The demo is divided into discrete steps, the user is either pushing, pulling or rotating and you can notice in between that the stones “click” into position when the goal has been achieved. At that point, it’s likely that the system changes contexts, so that the next time it detects a general ‘movement cue’ from the user it knows whether he’s trying rotate, push or pull. If this is the case, it just works like pushing a button — the user is always pushing the same button, it’s the system that changes what the button does. Which is not nearly as cool as if the user was changing which button he’s pushing.
But even though I’m skeptical, bringing this kind of a device to the consumer market is a great achievement. I look forward to more demos from Emotiv.
Hm. I didn’t tag my multitouch screen post as “future”, did I? Damn. Scratch that. Like a commenter said, touchscreens get dirty. So what’s better? We’ve all heard of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), perhaps even some of you remember news of the (now old) Mindball game, where players wore an external sensor array on their head to control a physical ball on a table (Mindball video (WMV)).
Well, that was a few years ago so I was excited yesterday when I found the latest in brain-computer interface tech. Emotiv’sProject Epoc is aesthetically pleasing in a futuristic style — except for that boxy processing unit — and supposedly on its way to becoming commercialized for the gaming industry. Here’s their own description, although I warn that this description is very ambiguous and should be gobbled up with caution:
Project Epoc is a headset that uses a set of sensors to tune into electric signals naturally produced by the brain to detect player thoughts, feelings and expression. It connects wirelessly with all game platforms from consoles to PCs. Project Epoc now makes it possible for games to be controlled and influenced by the player’s mind.
I can’t really comment on the technical aspects of the system as they provide only shallow descriptions. But Wikipedia has the following to say on non invasive brain-computer interface technologies:
Electroencephalography (EEG) is the most studied potential non-invasive interface, mainly due to its fine temporal resolution, ease of use, portability and low set-up cost. But as well as the technology’s susceptibility to noise, another substantial barrier to using EEG as a brain-computer interface is the extensive training required before users can work the technology.
Taking a look at the product page over at Emotiv, the examples (bottom, scrolling images) seem to indicate (or at least imply) that their system does quite a bit more than just move a cursor on the screen or a ball on a table. I’m interested in that avatar that changes its expression — given my enthusiasm for near-future virtual worlds ala Snow Crash, automatic expression control via BCI could be a killer app for teleconferencing.
In any case, even though I’m totally digging the motion controls of the Nintendo Wii — I’d trade it for a pair of a brain-computer interface and VR goggles any time.
The human-machine interface is moving along quite nicely. Todays news featured articles on research being carried out by researchers at the University of Washington’s Laboratory for Neural Systems, where they’ve managed to control a humanoid robot by brain signals.
The user wears an external cap embedded with 32 electrodes which pick up brain signals from the scalp. This technology is called electroencephalography (tonguebender). The user watches the robot on screens showing the feed of two cameras, one mounted above the robot and one on the robot itself.
“One of the important things about this demonstration is that we’re using a ‘noisy’ brain signal to control the robot,” Rao says. “The technique for picking up brain signals is non-invasive, but that means we can only obtain brain signals indirectly from sensors on the surface of the head, and not where they are generated deep in the brain. As a result, the user can only generate high-level commands such as indicating which object to pick up or which location to go to, and the robot needs to be autonomous enough to be able to execute such commands.”
The instructions which can be carried out in this manner are limited, but quite impressive none the less; the user can make the robot go forward, pick up one of two available objects and move it to one of two seperate locations. See video here (flash, ad) or here (.avi, no ad).
It seems to me that the robot they are using is a modified HOAP-2 robot from Fujitsu (HOAP3 is the latest version).
Thankfully, blogging is a great outlet for taking a break from the background research for your upcoming publications. Let me introduce you to my latest friend; Stack of articles and books related to creativity, meet the Strangers on the world wide web. Strangers of the world wide web, meet my friend Stack of articles and books related to creativity.
I’ve also got acquainted with another fellow, which isn’t as pleasant. Strangers of the world wide web, meet the Blinking red printer light.
It’s remarkable that with all the latest in computing technology, I still find that’s it saves me time to print out the articles that I need to read. Some, of course, remain on my computer (or else my printer-ink expenses would blow the roof). But even when printed, I’m constantly irritated by not having a “hide” option when I occasionally stop reading to either take notes or compare my readings another article. Where is my easy-on-the-eyes holographic display?
I’m still waiting, but there are some really cool technologies being developed — problem is that none has been commercialized for the general public. Here is, for example, the Heliodisplay — a really cool interactive holographic display. As can be expected, there’s no sign of a price on their page, which indicates a high price range. See video below.
What’s cheaper than a miniaturized, flying insect-like robot controlled by artificial intelligence? A miniaturized computer chip embedded as a control device in a natural organism. One of DARPAs projects involves injecting a chip into a Moth during the larva stage, the larva effectively adapting to the chip as part of its body. Once the moth hatches, machine learning is used to control it — to translate the signals and responses from the moth’s organic body — and effectively making it a mechorganic hybrid spy device; a cyborg moth.
When I was young I read Stephenson’s Snow Crash, and as I’ve mentioned before, that story was real gasoline on an already visionary-bent mind. Since then, I’ve watched the babysteps of online virtual worlds enthusiastically. I’ve also been haunted by a childlike desire for a head mounted display (
Microsoft recently demonstrated it’s multi-touch screen-table intended for companies and corporations. Similar to the features recently demoed in Apple’s iPhone, the table (named 
The human-machine interface is moving along quite nicely. Todays news featured articles on research being carried out by researchers at the University of Washington’s
I’ve also got acquainted with another fellow, which isn’t as pleasant. Strangers of the world wide web, meet the Blinking red printer light.
And...