Via Zach Marx, who gave me an excellent review:

Ran across this today. It may be old news, but the fact that prototypes and SDKs (software development kits, the code necessary to interface with the hardware mostly) will be in the hands of video game developers by March of this year is not.

Stealth-mode technology firm Emotiv Systems has revealed, via a new invitation, its plans to unveil the Emotiv consumer headset, a “high fidelity neuro-system” controller for gaming, at an event during Game Developers Conference later this month.”

This seems to have been around a little bit in the media, and feels a tiny bit vaporware overall, but they say it’ll be hands-on at GDC 2008, which is in a little over two weeks. Personally I think this will be put to better use as an interface device for other types of technology, such as personal computers using displays mounted in contact lenses, and with any luck it will be hacked as quickly and as effectively as the Wiimote was.

The basic idea is that it’s a helmet which can detect your emotional state (or at least facial expression) and use that data to interact with machines. It might be capable of more than that as well, considering that it seems to be mounting an array of electrodes on a helmet capable of wirelessly interfacing with other technologies. Hopefully, it will be able to detect other types of signals as well. We can give chimpanzees robot arms now. Letting me control a character in a videogame with my mind, or pull up directions without having to take my hands off the steering wheel, shouldn’t be too hard by comparison.

Get on the waiting list now.