New toys read brain waves
Monday, April 30th, 2007NeuroSky worker Cynthia Lee wears one of their head sets at NeuroSky headquarters in San Jose, Calif., Tuesday, March 27, 2007. The startup company aims to add more realistic elements to video games by using brain wave-reading technology to help game developers make gaming more realistic. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
Technology from NeuroSky and other startups could make video games more mentally stimulating and realistic. It could even enable players to control video game characters or avatars in virtual worlds with nothing but their thoughts.
Adding biofeedback to “Tiger Woods PGA Tour,” for instance, could mean that only those players who muster Zen-like concentration could nail a put. In the popular action game “Grand Theft Auto,” players who become nervous or frightened would have worse aim than those who remain relaxed and focused.
NeuroSky’s prototype measures a person’s baseline brain-wave activity, including signals that relate to concentration, relaxation and anxiety. The technology ranks performance in each category on a scale of 1 to 100, and the numbers change as a person thinks about relaxing images, focuses intently, or gets kicked, interrupted or otherwise distracted.











