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Thread ID: 94948	2008-11-18 06:03:00	The OCZ NIA - kinda long post	kersonan (13264)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
721110	2008-11-18 06:03:00	Today one of these arrived for me. (will add pics if there's any interest) OCZ NIA - Neural Interface Actuator www.ocztechnology.com If someone had said to me a few years back, "one day your computer will respond to electrical signals in your brain directly!" I would have said "yeah maybe in 10 years or so..." but its happened a lot sooner than that. setting work aside for the day (truth be told that had happened way before the NIA arrived) I unpacked it and set to work installing it on my work laptop. A usb cable connects the thing to your PC, the unit is about the same size as a pack of smokes, in a nice brushed aluminum finish. with a usb connector on the back and the headband cable plug in the front, has some blingy blue led's under it but they are pretty dim and seem a little pointless (unless you like blingy blue led's) Once plugged in Windows XP (works on Vista/XP64/Vista64) made the obligatory beeping that accompanies anything usb being plugged in and the drivers installed. pretty painless compared with other devices I've tangled with over the years. And now for the headband, its a fairly basic rubber band kinda thing with three sensors facing towards your forehead. pop it on the head and instant results, well the result was looking pretty stupid but a result none the less. Once you run the installed software your presented with a tutorial, I read the bit about how to adjust the headband and didn't really bother with the rest. Until about 10mins later when i realized i didn't have a clue on how to work this thing. Within a few minutes i could see brain electrical readouts doing what brain electrical readouts do, which is displaying graphs like a excel bar chart apparently. They do move up and down depending on the activity which explains why the unit costs more than an excel spreadsheet. You can assign actions (e.g this electrical reading = send a space bar press) so if you can cause it to trigger it sends that command to your PC. Sounds easy......... Well not quite, after figuring out that if i frowned it caused a certain trigger to be hit i made that = mouse click, a little further down in the menu i found another thing that I set to be the same as the tab key. and set my eyes glancing left and right to = cursor left/cursor right. pressing ctrl-f12 to give it control, turned it loose on the poor unsuspecting work laptop. Sadly I had seriously misjudged the sensitivity and watched in horror as i unintentionally opened many, many, many, many internet explorer sessions and open files and folders before i was able to get the thing off my head and put a stop to it. Several minutes later when I'd closed all the windows and IE sessions I made some changes to the sensitivity, now i can scroll up and down pages and use back/forward in the browser without touching keyboard or mouse. its quite surreal. Sorry this got a little long, this was the first day with the thing got a little carried away. Can update with new posts if people want to know more. TLDR version: I brought a thingy that I can control my PC with, by electrical changes in face muscles and alpha/beta waves in brain. No there's nothing wrong with me :)	kersonan (13264)
721111	2008-11-18 07:19:00	Re-booting is never going to be the same again.	R2x1 (4628)
721112	2008-11-19 01:42:00	Very cool, one day we will be able to sleep and work at the same time, it will revolutionise life as we know it. :D I don't think letting it control big things such as cars is a good idea though, imagine...some guy cuts you off, *wan*er*!! Next thing you know your car is buried in his boot.	wratterus (105)
721113	2008-11-19 21:36:00	Very cool, one day we will be able to sleep and work at the same time, it will revolutionise life as we know it. :D I don't think letting it control big things such as cars is a good idea though, imagine...some guy cuts you off, *wan*er*!! Next thing you know your car is buried in his boot. Your totally right on the car thing, Its promoted as a gaming device but any excitement causes a lot of brain activity making it really tricky to control. Much more potential as a mouse/keyboard computer control device imo	kersonan (13264)
721114	2008-11-20 10:11:00	That thing is very cool. I want one!	Faded_Mantis (79)
721115	2008-11-20 18:31:00	Mine came from here www.dragonpc.co.nz Free freight, arrived from chch to auck in 2 days. Not sure on stock levels though as its not exactly what I'd call a mainstream device, might pay to email them first to check.	kersonan (13264)
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