Mind Control and Revit

Watched a demonstration of some interesting technology this evening at the Revit Technology Conference (RTC 2010) here in Sydney. Emotiv is a combination of software and electrodes that receive impulses from a headset and then uses this to provide information about your brain activity. It can be used in many ways including learning facial expressions and other gestures to interact with a computer. There are more important medical related uses for this technology that certainly supercede its relevance to Revit but it is quite a concept.

We saw the Emotiv EPOC Brain Activity Map feature and the site says this about it:

This application displays a real-time map of your mental activity in four significant brainwave frequency bands. Adjustable gain allows you to see detailed information and relative strengths between different brain regions. Adjustable buffer size allows you to see instant responses or average activity over longer periods.

Here's a picture of it in action that Jim Balding posted on Twitpic.

Check it out!

Oh, this was part of the Glorius Gadgets session that RTC has run at each conference for the last few years. This year also featured Phil Read demonstrating the virtues of the iPad and various apps for it. It also featureed Chris Needham (he also found and introduced Emotiv) showing off a stylus that permits you to use a "pen" on practically any surface to interact with your computer.