Brain Control

I heard about the OCZ NIA a number of times. But my perception was they were still in the marketing phase (before production started). To my surprise the product has been actually available in OCZ retail chain for some time now. Mine arrived last Wednesday. A metal box with a size of a pack of cigarettes, USB cable on one end and a rubber head band with a small proprietary connector on the other. All packed in a big box (probably to justify the price - I payed ~$150 - quite steep for a HID controller) with high quality finishing touch. The only disappointment was a small paper insert advising to download the most recent drivers before plugging the thing in. The drivers are working - and this is the good part - even on my Windows 7 laptop.

I think I should tell what NIA is... NIA stands for Neural Impulse Actuator, and is a HID (Human Interface Device) controller that lets you control your PC (and I do mean PC - sorry, no Mac's at the moment) with impulses your brain sends to various parts of the body - especially a forehead any eyes. NIA generally is a rubber band with some sort of sensors, connected to a small interface box and then to a USB port. Then there is a software converting your brain waves to user - defined actions (like a mouse press). And the bottom line is - it works!

Before you start controlling the machine with your thoughts, the device has to be calibrated. It is about relaxing and bringing the noise down below a certain threshold. This process proved quite easy for me and within a minute or two I was able to clearly send a "thoughts wave" signal to the controller. Next I configured the NIA software to emulate a key press of "J" (this advances to the next unread item in Google Reader), sat in front of my laptop and started reading subscribed news feeds. It was fun, I tell you! The news items kept on advancing on the screen as I was triggering them to do so by applying just a little tension to my forehead. And then my phone rang and whoooom!... Everything disappeared from the screen - I guess the distraction triggered by the unexpected ring caused an avalanche of waves interpreted by the NIA as a fast machine gun - like series of key presses. NIA definitely is not mature enough to drive a car hands - free (somebody beeps at you and you are out of control). But in a controlled, relaxed environment it ifs fun to use. There is a glance function too - it tries to intercept the impulses moving the eyes and use them as a control input for one of analog axis in selected games. I have yet to master this, probably need a longer while of silence to relax and focus.

NIA with it's basic functionality also proved to be quite useful for applications requiring a lot of mouse presses - I played with it with a new Picasa and its face recognition tool. After scanning my library of photos, Picasa reported over ten thousand faces to identify and it does a good job grouping them and suggesting similar picks, you just have to confirm or reject the suggestions, one at a time. That means a thousand mouse presses a session (assuming you are going to sort a thousand of pictures time). My hand aches... It proved to be much easier with the NIA.

I have to say I welcome the NIA with hope and joy. Well - let us be open - this is a prototype. Something like the first Marconi radio, with a simple on /off morse - code signaling. But it may be as significant to future human computer interface developments, as Marconi was to what we have today with unbelievable complexities of CDMA and MIMO. Using computers may be a whole lot different, when we substitute mice and keyboards with headbands. Let it happen!