While browsing through the videos over at Collegehumor, I stumbled upon a hands on test of the Star Wars Force Trainer, a toy that, through the use of three electrodes placed on your head, lets you control a fan, which in turn blows on a ball, making it rise and fall as an effect of what those electrodes picks up, all this while Yoda is cheering you on in the background. Of course, this technology isn't anything new. EEG has been around for quite awhile, but it has mainly been used for clinical and scientific purposes.
On the product's official homepage, which can't be accused of being packed with technical information about the device itself, it is hinted, with the help of a fancy diagram with the attached text "Could this be real?", that the device measures the amount of beta activity that the electrodes picks up. That is, the strength of the fan is synced to the strength of this activity. This activity is allegedly connected to how hard you concentrate, but as with all neuroimaging methods, the relationship between mental function and objective measure is rarely of this simple one to one kind.
It turns out that a company called NeuroSky are supplying some of the hardware for this device. They are also involved in a game from Matel called Mindflex, a product that basically does the same thing as Star Wars Force Trainer with the addition that you have to transport the ball through an obstacle course with the help of a knob that changes the position of the fan.
Now, both these devices are utilizing a pretty simple setup. However, when starting to look into this, I found there to be several other products on the market doing, or at least trying to do, more advanced stuff than this. My plan is to present and talk about some of them in future posts.
So stay tuned, or whatever the equivalent to that expression is in the blog world.
