The Assistive Technology Blog

The "IT Director" (http://www.it-director.com/business/compliance/content.php?cid=10317) recently posted an article about the Epoc Headset from Emotive Systems.

"The headset is a lightweight ‘hat’ which uses electroencephalography (EEG), to measure brainwaves, and a gyroscope, to detect head movements. The signals are sent wirelessly to a processor. Analysis of the signals enables the system to recognise such things as Facial expressions...Desired force (lift an object or push it way)."

This is why he says it is cool:

"The market for this device is for serious gamers so their avatar can replicate facial expressions, or if boredom sets in, the game could be made more compelling. The thing that really excited me about this device is the price; it is being suggested that when it becomes publicly available later this year it will retail for around 300 US dollars. I assume it is this inexpensive because it is aimed at a very large potential market...the headset could be used for more mundane computing tasks such as moving a mouse pointer on a screen, drag and drop (focus on an object, close one eye to indicate drag, move the head and then open the eye to drop) etc."