7 ms·

Brain Computer Interfaces Inch Closer to Mainstream

41 points by scholia 14y ago

toisanji 14y ago
The examples they gave are EEG readers which have terrible resolution. There will need to be muchhigher resolution devices that can read more neural activity before we have anything close to mainstream BMI devices.
- cinquemb 14y ago
  Part of me wonders if one could use bio-nano-sensors[1] to amplify the electrochemical signals from the brain(or body) so they can be picked up easier or transformed into some other kind of language to be processed better/more efficiently (through an EEG reader or receiver of some kind). [1]https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6374200 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=...
  - figital 14y ago
    Wish I hadn't ran out of time for this ... https://vimeo.com/mindhead https://vimeo.com/mindhead. You can easily get to "on/off" with equipment like this. The rest depends on training protocols and the software design needed to implement them.
    - cinquemb 14y ago
      This is pretty cool, though probably a bit obtrusive for consumer applications. Also it doesn't look like the signal strength is that strong or varying (from what i can see in the video) which would make it pretty hard to try to fit equations that would match a specific actions induced from the brain.
jared314 14y ago
I'm still skeptical of BCIs being useful, to healthy people, for, at least, another twenty years. I can't think of a single thing I could control with my brain, that I couldn't do more accurately, and consistently, with my hands, voice, etc. But, I cannot tell if my perception is stunted by my current life experience, the quality of existing sensing technologies, or an actual lack of application.
- jasonhanley 14y ago
  The best physical reaction time is about 160ms [1] A direct neural connection could be more like 5-15ms [2] An order of magnitude difference in response time has huge ramifications for all sorts of applications. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_time [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron
  - kanzure 14y ago
    > A direct neural connection could be more like 5-15ms [2] That's not what EEG is. It's vastly more disappointing. > The best physical reaction time is about 160ms [1] Yes, but you (probably) have 10 fingers, and you can get the gaps between keypresses down to <100ms. That really helps with typing. Suppose you type 200 wpm, average word length 5 characters, maybe 980-1000 characters/minute or about 15-18 characters/second. When typed at a steady pace, you can reliably do 63ms between keystrokes. This isn't reaction time. With EEG, you get like 1 character every 4,800 milliseconds. (Although I admit I don't know if this is using dasher, or some other typing scheme, or what. Do you get just a binary character, or any UTF-8 character in those thousands of milliseconds?)
- AndrewKemendo 14y ago
  My approach is not so much your interaction to control a machine, more so how machines interact with your brain and body to guide your decision making. So think about BCIs and more broadly human machine interfaces for things like persistent heuristic mapping for memory augmentation (think along the lines of "tagging" events to neural activity - this might help with focused tDCS during recall) and in-stream blood toxin monitoring.
- saulrh 14y ago
  One simple example where a good BCI could beat hands and voice every time: window switching. No more task bar, no more start menu, no more alt-tab or window previews or virtual desktops. Just think "firefox" and you get firefox. If you want an even more hyperbolic what-if, to give you an idea of what we hope is so much as possible, a really could BCI could do away with the concept of windows entirely. Your eyes can only see one thing at a time and the computer can move information to your eyes faster than your eyes can move information to the computer, so just present the user with information as they think about wanting to observe it.
dhughes 14y ago
Does anyone remember Mind Bowling? It was a biofeedback bowling game, I'm not even sure what decade it was released.
donniezazen 14y ago
How much of Brain Computer Interfaces is biology and how much of it is computing on a rough scale? Does anyone know of any good books to gain more knowledge in this field? I study biology as an undergrad and this sounds very interesting.
- Nelkins 14y ago
  It's definitely more computing than biology, but it does depend slightly on the type of signal acquisition device. You have to know more about the underlying biological processes of the brain if you are recording from an implanted microelectrode array rather an an EEG cap. Here is a decent resource, but specific to one BCI research platform: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Brain-Computer-Interfacing-BCI2000/dp/1849960917 http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Brain-Computer-Interfa... Reading doctoral theses on this subject is also a great way to learn more. There are at least a few online that do a great job of explaining BCIs from the ground up.
  - donniezazen 14y ago
    Thank you so much.
qdot76367 14y ago
And in smaller publications, warnings about how hackers can access your brain waves! http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/04/28/brain-hacking-researchers-fear-attacks-on-the-mind/ http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/04/28/brain-hacking-re... Whole article behind paywall, and also above the fold of the business section of the Sunday April 28th SF Chronicle. Good times. Also, as the maintainers of some reverse engineered EEG drivers, I'm in agreement with pretty much every other pessimist. They're toys. Fun toys, but toys. We're waaaaaaaay off from the cool control shit, especially at a mass marketable consumer level, but believe me, there's gonna be tons of cool research shit on the way there.

41 points by scholia 14y ago

The examples they gave are EEG readers which have terrible resolution. There will need to be muchhigher resolution devices that can read more neural activity before we have anything close to mainstream BMI devices.

cinquemb 14y ago
Part of me wonders if one could use bio-nano-sensors[1] to amplify the electrochemical signals from the brain(or body) so they can be picked up easier or transformed into some other kind of language to be processed better/more efficiently (through an EEG reader or receiver of some kind). [1]https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6374200 https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=...
- figital 14y ago
  Wish I hadn't ran out of time for this ... https://vimeo.com/mindhead https://vimeo.com/mindhead. You can easily get to "on/off" with equipment like this. The rest depends on training protocols and the software design needed to implement them.
  - cinquemb 14y ago
    This is pretty cool, though probably a bit obtrusive for consumer applications. Also it doesn't look like the signal strength is that strong or varying (from what i can see in the video) which would make it pretty hard to try to fit equations that would match a specific actions induced from the brain.

jared314 14y ago

I'm still skeptical of BCIs being useful, to healthy people, for, at least, another twenty years. I can't think of a single thing I could control with my brain, that I couldn't do more accurately, and consistently, with my hands, voice, etc. But, I cannot tell if my perception is stunted by my current life experience, the quality of existing sensing technologies, or an actual lack of application.

jasonhanley 14y ago
The best physical reaction time is about 160ms [1] A direct neural connection could be more like 5-15ms [2] An order of magnitude difference in response time has huge ramifications for all sorts of applications. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_time http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction_time [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron
- kanzure 14y ago
  > A direct neural connection could be more like 5-15ms [2] That's not what EEG is. It's vastly more disappointing. > The best physical reaction time is about 160ms [1] Yes, but you (probably) have 10 fingers, and you can get the gaps between keypresses down to <100ms. That really helps with typing. Suppose you type 200 wpm, average word length 5 characters, maybe 980-1000 characters/minute or about 15-18 characters/second. When typed at a steady pace, you can reliably do 63ms between keystrokes. This isn't reaction time. With EEG, you get like 1 character every 4,800 milliseconds. (Although I admit I don't know if this is using dasher, or some other typing scheme, or what. Do you get just a binary character, or any UTF-8 character in those thousands of milliseconds?)
AndrewKemendo 14y ago
My approach is not so much your interaction to control a machine, more so how machines interact with your brain and body to guide your decision making. So think about BCIs and more broadly human machine interfaces for things like persistent heuristic mapping for memory augmentation (think along the lines of "tagging" events to neural activity - this might help with focused tDCS during recall) and in-stream blood toxin monitoring.
saulrh 14y ago
One simple example where a good BCI could beat hands and voice every time: window switching. No more task bar, no more start menu, no more alt-tab or window previews or virtual desktops. Just think "firefox" and you get firefox. If you want an even more hyperbolic what-if, to give you an idea of what we hope is so much as possible, a really could BCI could do away with the concept of windows entirely. Your eyes can only see one thing at a time and the computer can move information to your eyes faster than your eyes can move information to the computer, so just present the user with information as they think about wanting to observe it.

dhughes 14y ago

Does anyone remember Mind Bowling? It was a biofeedback bowling game, I'm not even sure what decade it was released.

donniezazen 14y ago

How much of Brain Computer Interfaces is biology and how much of it is computing on a rough scale? Does anyone know of any good books to gain more knowledge in this field? I study biology as an undergrad and this sounds very interesting.

Nelkins 14y ago
It's definitely more computing than biology, but it does depend slightly on the type of signal acquisition device. You have to know more about the underlying biological processes of the brain if you are recording from an implanted microelectrode array rather an an EEG cap. Here is a decent resource, but specific to one BCI research platform: http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Brain-Computer-Interfacing-BCI2000/dp/1849960917 http://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-Brain-Computer-Interfa... Reading doctoral theses on this subject is also a great way to learn more. There are at least a few online that do a great job of explaining BCIs from the ground up.
- donniezazen 14y ago
  Thank you so much.

qdot76367 14y ago

And in smaller publications, warnings about how hackers can access your brain waves! http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/04/28/brain-hacking-researchers-fear-attacks-on-the-mind/ http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/04/28/brain-hacking-re... Whole article behind paywall, and also above the fold of the business section of the Sunday April 28th SF Chronicle. Good times. Also, as the maintainers of some reverse engineered EEG drivers, I'm in agreement with pretty much every other pessimist. They're toys. Fun toys, but toys. We're waaaaaaaay off from the cool control shit, especially at a mass marketable consumer level, but believe me, there's gonna be tons of cool research shit on the way there.