Peter Nowak, correspondent
(Image: Peter Nowak)
Touchscreens? So two years ago. Gesture recognition? How 2010. Everyone knows the future lies in thought-controlled interfaces.
At least that's what InteraXon, a tiny Toronto startup, is hoping to convince attendees of at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. The company, which made waves at the 2010 winter Olympics by allowing users in Vancouver to control the lights on the CN Tower in Toronto with mere thought, will be showing off two new applications for its mind-control technology at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
One of its prototypes is a modified version of Zenbound, an iPad game that requires players to wrap a rope around wooden models by tilting and moving the device. InteraXon has partnered with designer Secret Exit to produce a demo-only version where movements are instead controlled by wearing a pair of headphones.
The headphones are equipped with a pair of sensors that sit against the user's left ear and forehead, forming a circuit that gauges electrical signals occurring in the brain. The signals are relayed to the iPad through an attached Bluetooth dongle.
Alpha brainwaves increase as the player relaxes and beta waves jump while focusing. Getting good at Zenbound is thus not unlike playing golf, InteraXon chief executive Ariel Garten says.
"To play golf, for example, you have to be incredibly relaxed. You also have to be highly focused on what you're doing," she says. "That peak moment of 'in the zone' of focus and relaxation is the optimal state you want to be able to achieve."
Indeed, talking while playing takes the user out of that zone and brings the game to a standstill. Stats at the end also show players when their concentration was at its best.
One real-world application of the game, Garten says, is that it can teach players to concentrate better, thereby combating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
The company's other demo resides on a 3D-enabled laptop and features a diorama scene of a snowy mountain village. While wearing 3D glasses and a headset, the user can control puffs of smoke from chimneys, birds flying around in the sky, or the falling snow.
They're both fairly blunt applications of thought-controlled computing but it's an area Garten thinks will only see big advances if researchers seek out commercial partners, which is why InteraXon is going to CES.
"I'm often asked if we're creating this technology for people who are disabled and the answer is no, we're creating it for everyone," she says. "Once you open it up... you have six billion people driving the innovation."