March 7, 2008 -- Imagine controlling a video game by thought alone. Two weeks ago at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Emotiv Systems showcased a new device, the Epoc, designed to help you do just that.

While Emotiv's futuristic, dueling-octopus looking headset will initially be developed for video games, it could eventually be used in medicine, virtual reality, robotics, education and many other areas.

The technology is based on electroencephalography, more commonly known as EEG. EEG has been around for over 100 years and is currently used to study sleep patterns and epilepsy by analyzing electrical activity in the brain. Until recently, though, EEG readings were regarded as too broad for most applications.

The breakthrough, notes Emotiv Systems' President Tan Le, is in the software algorithm that decodes a person's thoughts by analyzing the electrical impulses in the brain.

Many brain signals originate deep inside the brain and radiate outward. By time the signal reaches the outside of the brain, or cerebral cortex, the brain can appear to be firing randomly.

According to Le, Emotiv's software algorithm "unfolds the cortex and takes us closer to the source of the signal."

"We can calibrate the algorithm across a wide range of technologies with the same resolution you would get from placing an invasive chip inside the head," said Le. The system takes as little as six seconds to calibrate itself to a user.

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