EmotivEPOC Hands Free Controller

Source:  Emotiv

This is the start of the road for the ultimate controller.  No mouse, no trackpad, no joystick, no trackball ever and no cable from mind-controlled controller to the PC.  This is the EmotivEPOC.

What it does is put together 14 sensors to the head and read your mind.  If you’ve ever watched “Back to the Future” where Doc Emmett Brown opens the door to Marty MacFly wearing a metallic head-scanner, this is the logical successor.  And in plastic in 21st Century appropriate colors.  It even looks like it was made by Fisher Price.

It starts off as a headset.  It looks like a regular headset but without the headphones and mic.  It has 14 sensors which touch the skin and reads electrical impulses.  And to control a computer game, you have to think the game.  Instead of using the joystick to flank left or right, you just think about the action in your head, and the computer avatar will do it.

Potentially, game developers can help by adding more facial expressions to the avatar, and more life-like movements.  Additionally, it promises to have faster responses and reaction times, because the gamer is already thinking of the action, and there’s no intermediate human interface device to interpret the action.  This is pretty neat.

But seriously, this is not a toy.  Emotiv had already showcased the controller’s capability by using it to control a wheelchair.  And with continuous development, it is anybody’s guess how far this will go.  Quadriplegics can use this not just to play computer games, but also to talk with a real-time assist from the PC, as well as to move the wheelchair around.

As a human interface device, this can be extended for use as a remote controller (with commands running through the PC).  The only question to my mind is how to train a person to use it.

List price is $299.