Cerebral Hack

Up late at night surfing the web for god knows what and stumbled upon a NewEgg ad for a “game controller” that suggested its functionality was driven by brain power alone.

“Woah…wait…what?” I thought to myself. “I need to look at this more so I can find the gimmick.”

Here and there we have been seeing articles emerging about new technologies that have been experimenting with brain-to-computer control, and even had a sneek peak at what will be the first commercially released “game” controlled directly by your brain. But before up until then, I was unaware of a BCI device on the current consumer market. After reading some reviews, and YouTube videos, and discussing it more with a friend of mine whom was at 3am online and attentive (who hilariously knew I was already sold) I decided to get it. My justification was; even if I couldn’t pwn/frag in Halo, just being able to view and work with my actual brain waves, to me, was worth the VERY nominal price you can get this device for.

NIA headband

Packaging

I won’t go in depth into the packaging presentation and other garbage like that, because to me…..it’s not really a big deal, it gets seen twice at most, once when I rip it open, and twice if in the unfortunate event it needs to be RMAd, its shnazzy-fancy-future-like, prolly coulda saved me a few bucks just going with normal packaging, but it is for a gaming device and its marketing target audience is gamers, so I let this slide :)

Hardware

The device is quite simple, 1 headband with 3 diamond shaped sensors (that are to be centered on the forehead) made of very soft black rubber with a dongle in the back to adjust its size. The headband itself is then directly hardwired into the NIA Box which is a nice black brushed aluminum, very heavy duty, not too heavy, but enough to feel solid, this is then directly plugged into a USB port, no additional power is needed, the drawn power from the USB seems to be enough. If you have done your research, you will have found out off the bat the NIA has interminitant grounding issues. You basically either have them or you don’t. From what I have observed most grounding issues are resolved by simply placing your hand on the NIA device. Some also recommended shielding the wire going from the box itself to the headset with thin tinfoil and wrapping it in electoral tape. There is also a plethora of different ideas of how to ground if its needed on the OCZ Support Forums. The hardware other than that couldn’t be better, durable and solid manufacturing.  Here we see the creator of the NIA addressing some of the grounding issuses from a YouTube clip bellow

Software

If you got a big UT3 championship to attend and you’re looking for a way to quickly gain an advantage, you should prolly look elsewhere. The NIA is a device that Read: REQUIRES training. Yes young padawan, you too must train in order to move things with your mind…well…sorta. The software when fired up takes you through a calibration sequence so it can differentiate between your brainwaves and the waves around you. Once these are properly separated you are now free to have a bit of fun. My suggestion is to first read the tutorials. They will give you more of an idea what it is your supposed to be doing, and the best ways to go about it. After your eyes are done pouring over that you can then begin to train by playing a game that teaches you how to use 1 of 3 methods (Muscle, Eye movement, Alpha/Beta Waves) that you use to control through the NIA device. Other options are observeing your A1 – A3 alpha & B1- B3 Beta waves in real time depicted by 6 vertical bar graphs, practicing your glance movments and setting profiles to be used with the NIA and an application.

Usability

If you are easily aggravated by doing something and not getting an immediate satisfactory result, you may be hard pressed for one hell of a ride with the NIA.  Its not the most intuitive thing in the world to operate.  But there is a reason behind that: We’ve never needed to/tried to control anything with our brains on a literal plane.  This is where my emphasis on training comes in.  Its a must, if you think you can slap a piece of hardware on your noggin and glide yourself electronically through Azeroth you are really really…..confident :)  There are a lot of people on the OCZ forums that have posted their profiles, and what helps them.  These are place you’ll prolly want to go if you’re having issues “controlling”.  Just remember to be patent and before you know it, you’ll begin to see results.

Overall

In my opinion the grounding issues are annoying, but they are in fact very easy to overcome with great to perfect results. This device is the first of its kind on a consumer market, it deserves a little bit of leeway especially considering the price.  The software itself could use some revamping and ways to help visualize and learn how to control Alpha/Beta waves which is in my opinion, the most difficult thing to do, yet still “do-able”  I do not regret buying this device, and fully look forward to any new advances OCZ embarks on with this device.  They have recently been hinting around about releasing an SDK for the device which would make the community explode with joy and excitement because as of now most of what people are doing to mod this device is making profiles that interact with written code.  Its not very efficient and prolly doesn’t seem to be much worth of a coders precious time until they can get their hands on the raw data being transmitted by our brains and being received by the NIA device

Cerebral Hack gives the Neural Impulse Actuator 7/10

For more Information on this and more Neural Hardware Please besure to Visit the CH Library

~CC