The Misa Digital Guitar, designed not replace a guitar, but to create sound effects.

Link via core77.com.

Or:  Using Guitar Hero to demo a Muscle-Computer Interface.

Created by artist Sam Ashley:

His Ghost Detector is a musical instrument built by ‘hacking’ any electronic device that generates sound. Random lengths of wire are connected to randomly chosen places on its circuit board. The wires receive radiation of all kinds, and the results are translated into sound. The device becomes a “synthesizer”. It is unstable, responsive to slight influences and what it synthesizes can therefore not be controlled. A larger Ghost Detector randomly interconnects several such individual devices. Positioned all over a wall at HMKV, the network of “ghost detectors” read the “auras” of the audience. Rumour has it that the bodies or even the moods of visitors walking around the installation might affect the sonic output.

Link and photos via we-make-money-not-art.com.

The lush, white carpet is interwoven with conductive thread and transforms anyone who stands and walks across the carpet into a human antenna.

The carpet picks up the radio waves which your body receives and makes them “hearable.” When walking on the carpet you can tune it to a certain frequency, similar to the tuner of a radio.

Photo and video via fashioningtech.com.

After relying on a pacemaker for 20 years, Carol Kasyjanski has become the first American recipient of a wireless pacemaker that allows her doctor to monitor her health from afar — over the Internet.

When Kasyjanski heads to St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, New York, for a routine check-up, about 90 percent of the work has already been done because her doctor logged into his computer and learned most of what he needed to know about his patient.

Three weeks ago Kasyjanski, 61, became the first person in the United States to be implanted with a pacemaker with a wireless home monitoring system that transmits critical information to her doctor via the Internet.

Kasyjanski, who has suffered from a severe heart condition for more than 20 years, says the device has given her renewed confidence and a new lease of life, because if her pacemaker were to malfunction or stop working, only immediate action would save her life.

“Years ago the problem was with my lead, it was nicked, and until I collapsed no one knew what the problem was, no tests would show what the problem was until I passed out,” she told Reuters Television.

Dr. Steven Greenberg, the director of St. Francis’ Arrhythmia and Pacemaker Center, said the new technology helps him better treat his patients and will likely become the new standard in pacemakers.

He said the server and the remote monitor communicate at least once a day to download all the relevant information and alert the doctor and patient if there is anything unusual.

“If there is anything abnormal, and we have a very intricate system set up, it will literally call the physician responsible at two in the morning if need be,” he said.

Link and words via reuters.com. Interesting that the article mentions nothing about any security measures in place.

MIT Professor Missy Cummings (a former F-18 Hornet Navy Pilot), and her team of 30 students and undergrads, have successfully demonstrated how an iPhone could be used to control an Unmanned Area Vehicle, or UAV.

As part of their work at MIT’s Humans and Automation Lab (HAL, heh), the team thought about ways to improve on the suitcase-sized controller that soldiers must currently lug around to control hand-thrown Raven UAVs.

The iPhone app they developed sends GPS coordinates to the craft, which then in turn can send photos and video back to the iPhone.

Link and video via gizmodo.com.

Neurosky’s mind control headset, the aptly named MindSet, is now available for purchase.

I had the chance to see an early version of these in action at the Tokyo Game Show last year, and it was pretty impressive tech.

The demo video gives a quick run-down on what apps are currently available with it:

Probably only for the first-adopter crowd right now, but I think we all can see the potential here.

Previously:

• Mind Control coming to games and toys

The story here is that CNN is reporting this. Or as reader Paul Luthy wrote “It seems significant that a major network news source is treating this as science news…”

So not much progress has been made since we posted about this in Jan ‘08; but more people are aware of it now. Thanks CNN!

Via Digital Urban comes word of this heavily branded zombie shooter for NVIDIA’s new hand-held. The tech is impressive, but why the hell do you have to shoot Skittles?

From gizmag:

Students at the Fraunhofer Institute in Germany are developing a pair of interactive data eyeglasses that can project an image onto the retina from an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) micro-display, making the image appear as if it’s a meter in front of the wearer. While similar headwear only throws up a static image, the students are working on eye-tracking technology that allows wearers, with just the movement of the eyeball, to scroll through information or move elements about.

via Mac Tonnies

Link via textually.org:

From telegraph.co.uk.

The system works by monitoring electroencephalography – or EEG – which is the electrical activity produced on the scalp by the movement of neurons within the brain.

The user of a BCI wears a cap, which is studded with electrodes and connected to a computer. The electrodes detect the electrical signals caused by thoughts.

Mr Wilson’s Twitter set-up contains an onscreen alphabet. The letters flash in turn, and when the letter that the user wants to type flashes, the system detects a spike in their brain activity, and selects that letter.

Slow, slow progress - but progress.

Created by Bruce Branit, who shot in it a few days.World Builder involved two years of post-production work to bring it to this moment.

Sent to me via twitter by heresybob.

We mentioned MIT’s Sixth Sense project earlier. The full TED talk introducing and briefly demonstrating it is now online:

Via WIRED, here’s two more quick demo videos:

I want this now. Please! (Yes, a HUD would make this perfect.)

From Blorge:

Researchers combined a mobile projector with a webcam and mobile phone to create a device that draws information from the environment. The wearer can also interact with the sixth sense device using touch gestures on nearly any surface.

..

The sixth sense gadget’s projector can turn anything into a touch screen and captures input via the webcam. The wearer can draw a circle on his or her wrist and the device will project a digital clock face.

The gadget can also take pictures of the wearer’s surrounding with very simple prompts. All the user has to do is frame out an area and the webcam will snap a frame.

MIT’s latest device can also provide additional information about a wearer’s surroundings. The gadget recognizes products on store shelves and can provide product and price comparison information.

The device can also retrieve flight information simply by viewing a plane ticket to let the wearer know about delays. When reading magazine articles, the device automatically pulls up related information from the Web.

The sixth sense device was cobbled together from common parts costing just $300. At the heart of the device is a smartphone that uses an Internet connection to retrieve information.

In addition, the device turns nearly any surface into a touch screen. If nothing else is available, the wearer can even project a screen onto a hand.

thanks to John English for the tip-off!

It’s never too early to get the children to move things with their minds:

Mattel’s keeping mum about the technology behind its Mindflex game, but – according to several online sources – the game requires the user to wear a headset equipped with sensors that measure brainwave activity.

This ‘activity’ is then used to guide a small foam ball through an obstacle course of hoops, which can be customised by the gamer.

It’s still unclear how the ball is kept in the air throughout its journey around the obstacle course. Some reports have claimed that a fan’s used, whilst other sources have said that Epoc-esque technology is the key to Mindflex’s power.

What we do know is that Mindflex will be paraded by Mattel at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, which is about to kick-off in Las Vegas.

Link and photo via reghardware.co.uk.

See also:

• Stanford presents everything you need to know about the emotiv mind control device
• Emotiv epoc neuroheadset update
• Humanmachine interaction

Via gizmodo.com:

Apparently, the Wrao 920AV will be “the first to actually function as sunglasses or portable video eyewear. It’ll combine virtual reality (VR) capabilities as well as augmented reality (AR) features.” Holy crap that is awesome.

Spotted on makezine.com, each dress uses sensors to responding to proximity or the wind.

Proximity:

Wind:

Breathe into a wind sensor and the garment opens and expands, mimicking you by appearing as if it’s taking its own breath:

Videos via bot-lab.com.

- photo via nextnature.net

Constructed of a soft, flesh-like gel, the remote appears cold when off. Once turned on, however, it seems to come to life. A soft light emanates somewhere from within as the center of the device begins to slowly rise and fall, mimicking the tranquil motions of breath. Left undisturbed, the remote will slumber peacefully. Buth should a human hand approach, sensors inside alert it to the imminent touch. It stops breathing, grows rigid – the light from within is extinguished. A remote is the ideal meaphor for the disturbance electronic distration poses to life. If we had to interrupt its life before it could interrupt ours, we may think twice before picking it up.

It’s ALIVE!

Link and photo via nextnature.net

Using binary thinking as the basis, this concept ooze helps you determine whether to add or drop people on social networking sites. A virtual robot takes over your online identity, and each spike in the ooze represents an online friend. Interaction with the spikes creates interaction in the online world.

Link and photos via yankodesign.com.

- image via yankodesign.com

As communication becomes increasingly reliant on social media experiences i.e., email, IM, and text messages - valuable information woven subtly in physical interaction are lost. Communicate by Remote Concepts isn’t the first of its kind. The idea is simple. A user wears a small device with an integrated camera. This real time image is then translated into an abstract representation.Therefore the receiver gets (at least a part) of the visual stimuli the remote person encounters throughout the day. So you can get a glimpse of the kind of visual context the other person is in. This allows for a feel of connectedness and empathy with the remote user.

In this manner two or more people can always share experiences even from a distance. The receiving unit is a series of modular triangles one can set up however they like. It becomes a dynamic wall sculpture personalized by the abstraction of experience.

- image via yankodesign.com

Link and video via yankodesign.com.